ARTICLE 72

Advisory Committee I, Church Order I, Dr. Calvin L. Bremer reporting, presents the following:

I. ISSUE OF COVENANT CHILDREN PARTAKING AT THE LORD'S SUPPER

A. Materials:

1. Report 26, p. 260-316
2. Overture 18, p. 371

B. Observations:

Synod 1984 appointed a seven-member committee "to study the issue of covenant children partaking of the Lord's Supper." This committee presented Synod 1986 with a majority and two minority reports. Synod did not accept any of these reports or their recommendations. Rather, synod increased the size of the committee to nine members and asked the newly constituted committee to examine additional materials, receive the reactions of the churches, and report in 1988. Synod 1988 again has majority and minority reports from the study committee. Within the majority report there is also some difference as is demonstrated by the addendum to that report. In addition, synod is requested by Overture 18 to delay a decision on this matter.

The advisory committee is appreciative of many insights contained in the majority and minority reports. However, your committee finds several of the arguments in the reports less than convincing. The study committee focused its study on the question "Should we admit (covenant) children to the Lord's Supper. . . and if so, at what age and under what conditions?" Even though the majority and minority reports use different routes to arrive at their conclusions, we note that both reports regard faith as a necessary. condition for participation in the Lord's Supper. With that your committee agrees. However, in the judgment of your committee these reports do not provide adequate theological grounding for the necessity of faith as a requirement for admission to the Lord's Supper. Therefore your committee finds both the majority report with its recommendations and the minority report with its guidelines deficient.

Taking account of the issues raised in the reports (also those submitted to Synod 1986) and sifting the biblical and theological arguments presented, your committee has formulated its own recommendations for synod's consideration. These recommendations are based on the conviction that while children are baptized upon the foundation of the Abrahamic covenant, we participate in the grace of the new covenant administration of the Abrahamic covenant only by rebirth, which is evidenced in faith. It is this new covenant in Christ that is celebrated in the Lord's Supper, and it is this faith of the participant that is nourished at the table.

C. Recommendations:

1. That synod not accede to Overture 18.

Ground: The issue has been before the church since 1984 and consistories were
requested by Synod 1986 to give reactions.

-Adopted

2. That synod grant the privilege of the floor to the designated representative of the majority and minority reports during the discussion. The majority and minority representatives yield to the report of the advisory committee.

-Adopted

3. That synod declare:

a. The church is warranted in admitting to the Lord's Supper covenant children who give evidence of faith and are able to discern the body and remember and proclaim the death of Jesus in celebrating the Lord's Supper.

Grounds:

1) The Bible makes clear that participation in the Lord's Supper is a result of status in the covenant (Matt. 26:28; Luke 22:20; d. Exodus 12; 13; 24:4-11; I Cor. 10:1-4; Eph. 2:11-13) and also entails an act of faith on the part of those participating (I Cor. 11:23-29; John 6:35; Luke 22:19).

2) In baptism God seals the promise of the covenant made with Abraham. Participation in the Lord's Supper indicates an individual acceptance of these covenant promises through faith.

3) Our confessions teach the necessity of faith for participation in the Lord's Supper. The Heidelberg Catechism explains that participants in the sacrament, "accept with believing heart the entire suffering and death of Christ" (Q/A 76). The Belgic Confession states that the sacrament of the Holy Supper was instituted, "to nourish and sustain those who are already born again and ingrafted into His family: His Church" (Art. XXXV).

-Adopted

b. The church is to assure itself of such faith through a public profession of faith on the part of covenant children.

Grounds:

1) Confessing with one's mouth that Jesus is Lord (Rom. 10:9; Phil. 2:9-11) in the presence of God and his people (I Tim. 6:12-13; Matt. 10:32) allows the church to witness the work of God's Spirit in the lives of covenant children and joyfully receive them in the fellowship of the table.

2) A public profession of faith of covenant children enables the consistory to faithfully supervise the Lord's Supper.

-Adopted

c. Covenant children should be encouraged to make public profession of faith as soon as they exhibit faith and are able to dissemble the body and remember and proclaim the death of Jesus in celebrating the Lord's Supper.

Grounds:

1) Since the Bible establishes no specific age requirement, the common practice of delaying profession of faith even though faith is present has no biblical warrant.

2) Faith created by the Holy Spirit through the gospel ought to be professed, celebrated by the church, and nourished at the Lord's Supper.

-Adopted

Overture 18 - Delay Decision on Children Partaking of the Lord's Supper

Classis Hudson overtures synod to delay for one year any decision on Report 26 submitted by the Committee to Study the Issue of Covenant Children Partaking of the Lord's Supper. The committee's report is lengthy and its recommendations to change historic procedure and Church Order quite significant. The additional year will give the churches a proper "soak time" for reflection and reaction before a final decision is made.

Grounds:

1. Report 26 was received by the churches later than the deadline established by the Rules for Synodical Procedure V, G and H: "Study committee reports shall be distributed not later than December 1."

2. The time lines forced upon the councils and classis preclude any direction (overture) to the Synod of 1988. The Pompton Plains Council received the report on or about the date for which classical agenda items were to be submitted (Dec. 14). Classis Hudson's January meeting is the last one which can take action to meet synod's agenda time-line in mid-March. This need for proper time was established by Article III, C, 1, as being ". . . at least six months prior to being acted upon by synod" (Acts of Synod 1985).

3. The committee report considers its recommendation as a historic change. The committee took two years to produce the report; therefore it is reasonable for the church as a whole to study and reflect upon the findings for at least a year.

Classis Hudson
Oren Holtrop, stated clerk

REPORT 26
COMMITIEE TO STUDY THE ISSUE OF COVENANT CHILDREN PARTAKING OF THE LORD'S SUPPER

I. Majority Report

Introduction

In 1984 Classis Rocky Mountain requested that synod "appoint a committee to study the issue of covenant children partaking of the Lord's Supper, and the report of the study committee of Classis Rocky Mountain." The grounds offered by classis included questions about our present practice that were being asked by certain congregations, serious pastoral concerns which needed to be addressed, and "compelling theological arguments from our own framework of covenant theology for children being included in the Lord's Supper." Classis also recognized that any change in the present practice could be made only at the synodical level (Acts of Synod 1984, pp. 419-24).

Synod acceded to this request. It constituted a seven-person study committee which was to report to synod in 1986. The mandate to this committee was essentially the grounds adduced by Classis Rocky Mountain. Synod also observed that other Reformed churches were discussing this question, and that we could make a valuable contribution to that discussion (Acts of Synod 1984, pp. 651 and 681).

The committee presented Synod 1986 with a majority report and two minority reports. The majority report held that all who partake of the Lord's Supper should discern, remember, and proclaim the body of Christ and that ordinarily early adolescents are capable of such discerning, remembering, and proclaiming. One minority report held that such a demonstration of faith could be expected earlier. The other minority report held that it is not a demonstration of faith, but status in the covenant which Scripture requires (Agenda for Synod 1986, pp. 346-70).

Synod's advisory committee observed that "all three reports agree that this issue is a significant one and that it needs to be studied further by the church. All three reports also move in the direction of earlier participation of covenant children at the Lord's Supper. As evidenced by the fact that there are three reports, however, there are differences of opinion about the nature of the sacrament of the Lord's Supper and what the biblical requirements are for participation" (Acts of Synod 1986, p. 618).

Synod 1986 did not accept any of the three reports. Instead, it continued the committee, increased its size from seven to nine, and requested it to report to synod in 1988. Synod asked the committee to receive reactions from the churches (to be sent to the committee by March 1, 1987) and in its report give particular attention to the following areas:

a. the relationship of the Lord's Supper to the Passover;

b. the history of children's participation in the Lord's Supper;

c. a study of such Scripture passages as Exodus 12-13; Deuteronomy 16:1-5, 13-17; Matthew 18:1-10; 26:17-30 and parallels: I Corinthians 7:14; 10:1-5, 14-22; 11:17-34;

d. biblical requirements for participation in the Lord's Supper

e. the relationship of the Lord's Supper to the covenant;

f. the relationship of the Lord's Supper to public profession of faith.

Acts of Synod 1986, p. 620

The augmented study committee convened and accepted the new mandate. Written analyses of various aspects of the issue were prepared by committee members for committee use. Articles, reports from other churches, and the analysis provided by Classis Rocky Mountain to Synod 1984 were studied. Other activities of the committee were:

a. On December 2, 1986, several members of the committee met with an Orthodox Presbyterian Church committee studying the same question.

b. The committee prepared an adult study guide on the question of children at the Lord's Supper and sent the guide to all the churches. The purpose of the guide was to stimulate discussion of the subject and to encourage church members to send reactions to the committee.

c. Two articles on the question of Lord's Supper for children, one by the chairman of the committee, appeared in the March 9, 1987, issue of The Banner. Readers' responses were solicited.

d. The committee received and analyzed three kinds of communication from interested individuals and groups: consistories which responded to the request made by Synod 1986; individuals and classes which used the study materials; and individuals who responded to the Banner articles.

Communications were received from seven consistories; from individuals and adult classes of twenty congregations where the study guide was used with over 250 people; and from thirty persons who responded to the articles in The Banner.

At the present time the normal practice of the Christian Reformed Church is to bring young people to the Lord's table by way of public profession of faith before the consistory and the congregation. This profession is ordinarily not made before the middle to late teens.

The issue facing the church can be distilled to this question:

Should we admit children to the Lord's Supper at an earlier age and, if so, at what age and under what conditions?

1. THE CHRISTIAN REFORMED PRACTICE IN HISTORICAL CONTEXT

It is commonly assumed that the practice of admitting children to the Lord's Supper goes back to the time of the ancient church. However, the practice cannot be documented until the third century A.D. Some people see in the silence of the New Testament that the church emerging out of Judaism would have naturally included children in Communion because they were included in the Passover.

Concrete evidence for paedocommunion appears in the third century in the writings of Cyprian (A.D. 251). (It should be noted that the first clear references to infant baptism in the available writings only predate Cyprian by about fifty years. Yet, by inferences [for example, Hippolytus—ca. 215] it is assumed that infant baptism was practiced from the beginning.)

In the fourth and fifth centuries there are many references to children's participation in the Lord's Supper. These references are found in the liturgical instructions in the Apostolic Constitution (ca. 380) and in a letter of Bishop Innocent I of Rome (416), both sent to Augustine, and in other writings of the fifth century. An example of such a statement is found in Augustine's De peccatorum meritis et remissione, et de baptismo parvulorum 26, 27 (Nicene & Post-Nicene Fathers, 1st series, V., p. 25):

Let us, I say, hear what the Lord says—not indeed concerning the sacrament of the laver, but concerning the sacrament of his own holy table, to which none but a baptized person has the right to approach: "Except ye eat my flesh, and drink my blood, ye shall have no life in you. . . ." Will, however, any man be so bold as to say that this statement has no relation to infants, and that they can have life without partaking of his body and blood—on the ground He does not say, except one eat, but "Except ye eat"; as if He were addressing those who were able to hear and to understand, which of course, infants cannot do? But he who says this is inattentive, because unless all are embraced in the statement . . . it is to no purpose that even the elder age is solicitous of it. . . . From all this it follows, that even for the life of infants was His flesh given. . . and that even they will not have life if they eat not the flesh of the Son of Man.

In the ancient period the practice of children's participation in the Lord's Supper is thought to be common, though not universal. This helps us to understand that the dialogue among Christians on this subject has continued throughout the history of the church. Understanding this, however, does not resolve the issue.

A. The Medieval Church

The practice of paedocommunion was common in the Western and Eastern church at least through the eleventh century. For example, the Gregorian Sacramentary and Mozarabic liturgies (used in Spanish churches) all recognize the practice.

Change began primarily in the West with what has been called the intellectualization of Christianity. The understanding of the Lord's Supper slowly changed in the popular mind. It was originally seen as a sacramental meal in which the entire body was nurtured. Through this period it came to be understood that in the Eucharist there was a real presence of the substantial body and blood of Christ. In the Eucharist his body and blood were offered to God again in sacrifice by the priest. Such high sacramentalism led to the infrequent communion by all members of the congregations. The elements were seen as so holy that many feared either dropping or spilling them. In response to this the Fourth Lateran Council (1215) required yearly confession and communion by all the faithful at Easter, and communion to begin for children age seven, and older.

Following the split between the Eastern church and the Western church (1054), the Eastern church continues to practice paedocommunion to the present. The Western church moved toward required training before participation. For example, Thomas Aquinas believed that baptized children had the right to receive the body of Christ, but at the right time, not at once. He used the analogy of an inheritance; one acquires the right to it, but one does not take possession of it immediately. An attitude of faith and discretion was necessary. This subjective element was later developed by the reformers.

B. The Reformation Church

By the time of the Reformation the only groups practicing paedocommunion were the Eastern Orthodox (Greek) churches, the Armenian Church, and the Bohemian Hussites. Among the reformers the only person who favored paedocommunion was Wolfgang Musculus, who argued for it on covenantal grounds. The reformers generally reflected the late medieval emphasis of faith and discernment as a necessary subjective prerequisite for partaking, following the thought of Thomas Aquinas. Baptism was seen as entrance into membership with Christ (union with Christ). Education followed in order to lead the person to confession of faith and participation in the Lord's Supper. That education was the primary responsibility of parents, also of pastors and elders.

John Calvin taught that baptism was a "sign of birth," while the Lord's supper was for those who had passed infancy and could take solid food. The supper was the medicine for the sick, the food for the weak, solace for sinners, alms for the poor. Its purpose was "to awaken, arouse, stimulate, and exercise the feeling of faith and love, indeed, to correct the defect of both" (Institutes, IV, xvii, 42).

Calvin maintained that Christ was really present in the sacraments and that they were objectively valid. They do not depend on the condition of the recipient. Faith does not effect the presence of Christ; this rests with the Holy Spirit on the basis of Christ's promise. Yet an impious or wicked person receives no benefit (Institutes, IV, xiv, 16). Faith is the mouth that receives the body and blood of Jesus Christ, and faith is the gift of the Holy Spirit. Therefore Calvin required that there be a minimum knowledge of the faith along with a personal examination of the communicant as to whether he/she truly held to the evangelical faith in his/her heart and confessed that faith with his/her mouth. Calvin speaks of a child of ten being asked the questions of faith and being welcomed to the Lord's table.

One of the comments Calvin made on the matter of infants receiving Communion occurred in the context of defending infant baptism against the Anabaptists. The Anabaptists had argued that "there is no more reason to administer baptism to infants than the Lord's Supper." Responding to this in 1539, Calvin wrote:

For with respect to baptism, the Lord there sets no definite age. But he does not similarly hold forth the Supper for all to partake of, but only for those who are capable of discerning the body and blood of the Lord, of examining their own conscience, of proclaiming the Lord's death, and of considering its power. (Institutes, 4:16-30)

In his revised 1543 edition of the Institutes, Calvin added this sentence to the same section:

This permission to admit children to the table was indeed commonly given in the ancient church, as is clear from Cyprian and Augustine, but the custom has deservedly fallen into disuse.

In general we can say that the reformers held that the subjective element of faith was necessary before participation in the Lord's Supper was allowed. Baptism (union with Christ) was offered to infants, while the Lord's Supper (communion with Christ) was withheld until they finished a period of education. It seems this confession following education generally occurred at a younger age than currently practiced in our churches. The Reformed churches on the continent ascribed to the sacraments a faith-confirming role, not a faith-producing role.

Among the three Forms of Unity that came from the Reformation and post-Reformation period and which are now the doctrinal standards of the Christian Reformed Church, only the Heidelberg Catechism addresses itself expressly to the issue: "Who are to come to the Lord's table?" (Q 81). The answer is based on I Corinthians 10:19-22 and 11:26-32, and is framed wholly in terms of ethical qualification. Penitent believers may come, and the impenitent may not. The catechism does not address itself to the question of whether children may come to the Lord's table, or at what age a person may come. The presupposition seems to be that only mature persons with the capacity to examine themselves may come.

In the early Scottish churches children were admitted to the table when they showed a faith-knowledge of the three traditional elements of faith: the Lord's Prayer, the Apostles' Creed, and the Ten Commandments.

Confessionally the Scottish and English churches rejected the practice of paedocommunion in the Westminster Larger Catechism (Q & A 177), saying that the Lord's Supper is to be offered "only to such as are of years and ability to examine themselves." Currently this stand is under discussion.

To summarize: Throughout the history of the church there have been differences of opinion on whether children should participate in the Lord's Supper and, if so, what should be required of them. While the Eastern churches followed the practice of paedocommunion, the Western churches began in the eleventh century to place greater emphasis on the requirements of faith and discernment. This emphasis, following the argument of the Lateran Council, was maintained by most reformers in the sixteenth century. The practice of requiring a public profession of faith or confirmation has continued in most of those churches to the present. The age at which this profession was expected has varied.

C. The Contemporary Discussion

In spite of the prevailing testimony and practice of Reformed churches since the Reformation, the question of whether children should participate has been raised in recent years. Among the ideas and arguments shaping the discussion are the following:

1. Since baptism symbolizes unity with Christ, and thus covenant membership, a covenant child should also participate in communion with Christ.

2. Since the Passover is the Old Testament sacrament that is the predecessor to the Lord's Supper, and since children participated in the Passover as part of their covenant status and training, children in the New Testament should participate in the Lord's Supper in a similar way.

3. First Corinthians 11:17-34 is seen as a clear statement of requirements for participation in the Lord's Supper; however, regarding covenant children, the Lord's Supper is understood to nurture their faith with the goal of attaining maturity.

4. Jesus' attitude toward the faith of children, coupled with the current understanding of faith ill child development, makes it important that children's faith be nurtured in the sacrament.

5. An understanding of the faith-nurturing aspects of the Lord's Supper itself has influenced the current discussion.

6. Evaluation of the so-called intellectualization of Christianity in the eleventh century in the Western church has also influenced many to reevaluate their position regarding children's partaking of the Lord's Supper.

Other denominations have dealt with this issue in several ways. In 1970 the United Presbyterian Church stated, "The session shall offer continuing counsel, encouragement, and aid to families of baptized children. The session may authorize the families under its care to permit their baptized children to participate in the Lord's Supper with the congregation" (Minutes, May 26, 1970). A formal profession of faith for young people was retained, admitting them to full privileges and responsibilities in the churches.

The Reformed Church in America's General Synod sent a report on this issue to the churches for study in 1977. In 1982 the report was sent back to the theological commission for revision and recommendations. This commission recommended that children be admitted to the Lord's Supper on the basis of their baptism. This motion was not adopted; the reason given for its rejection was that the paper overemphasized the efficacy of infant baptism and did not give sufficient emphasis to a personal commitment to Christ and a confession of faith before the partaking of Holy Communion (General Synod, 1984).

In 1976 the Gereformeerde Kerken in Nederland received a report favorable to paedocommunion. At the 1978 Synod the practice was adopted by the GKN. This decision has been greeted by a mixed reaction from members of that denomination.

Several other studies are going on at present. The Orthodox Presbyterian Church study committee is presenting a majority report to its 1988 General Assembly recommending paedocommunion. The Presbyterian Church in America and the Reformed Ecumenical Synod both have committees studying the matter.

In summary, as we review the history of this issue in the church we see that it is not an issue that separates Christians into liberal, conservative, or progressive camps. It is not an evangelical versus nonevangelical issue. People fully committed to the inspiration and authority of Holy Scriptures are found on both sides of this question.

II. BIBLICAL STUDY

A. Old Testament

The Passover

Passover is the most vivid and dramatic of all the Jewish festivals. No other Old Testament festival has had the enduring influence on the cultic expression of Judaism, during the biblical era and following, as has the Passover. No other festival has developed as distinctive a ritual—the Seder—already evident in biblical times. No other has gathered about it such a host of biblical references, ethical insights, and such intense messianic anticipation. None has been more central to the history of the covenant people's worship experience.

For Christians, Passover is of great interest because it provides the historical and theological background for the Christian events of Easter. The Last Supper is rooted in the Passover meal and such concepts as the Lamb of God, the living bread, and the cup of wine. Even so, the exact relationship between Old Testament Passover and New Testament Supper has been the topic of much debate. The discussion becomes more focused when one considers the implication of this relationship for the proper anticipation and celebration of the Lord's Supper. Certainly a biblically sound position regarding the qualifications for participation in the Supper demands proper understanding of the relationship between the Passover and the Lord's Supper.

a. The Institution and Nature of the Passover

The Passover feast originated as part of the process by which God liberated his people from the Egyptian bondage by a series of providential interventions. In order that Israel might be properly prepared for deliverance, to provide the basis for continual remembrance of the original salvation, and to highlight the long-term significance of the first Passover, God instituted the Passover festival.

According to the record in Exodus 12 and 13 this festival was carefully prescribed by divine revelation. It was to be celebrated on the evening of the fourteenth day of the month Abib (Ex. 12:6; 13:4). God specified that from that time on, this month was to be the beginning of the calendar year for his people. Their whole life was to be shaped by that initial deliverance event. The coincidence with the spring season with its new life implied that Israel's new life began in the redeeming power of God in the salvation experience that was found in the deliverance from Egypt. The fullness of her religious celebrations was based on and began with the Passover celebration.

The very specific and detailed instructions for the initial and future celebrations indicate that the Passover was much more than a festival of political deliverance. Because the celebration was to include the shedding of blood, a sacrificial animal was to be selected. The sacrifice was to be a male lamb or kid less than one year old and without blemish (Ex. 12:3-6). During the sacrificing and eating not a bone could be broken (12:46; Num. 9:12). The lamb was to be selected on Abib 10 or four days before the Passover meal, chosen on the basis of the number of those who would be eating the meal (Ex. 12:4). It was to be killed at twilight (between noon and evening). Its blood was to be placed at the entrance of the home of each believing household by the covenant head in that dwelling on behalf of all who were living there. The blood graciously and effectively delivered those who recognized their imminent danger and faithfully believed in God's instructions. The great care that was to be given to detail not only pointed to the significance of the Passover, it also emphasized the importance of each of the elements in the Passover.

First, Passover was a sacrificial festival as well as a commemorative one—blood was to be shed. God taught Israel that "life was in the blood" and that the shedding of blood sacrificially "makes an atonement" (Lev. 17:11). Grace could not be given without atonement being made and therefore the lamb had more than commemorative significance. What made the blood on the door effectively cause the destroyer to "passover" was not the faith the Israelite had or that he was obedient, but that the blood was sacrificial, and that it was atoning in character. Ultimately the effectiveness of the lamb's blood was grounded in the mediatorial work of Christ to which the Passover pointed (Rev. 13:8). The great significance of the Passover was precisely the sacrificial and therefore propitiatory nature of the festival.

Second, the festival was substitutionary. Each family, through its covenant head, identified (inspected for quality and quantity), selected, and sacrificed a lamb to preserve them from destruction. The Passover practices would elicit from the children questions that would give the fathers the opportunity to explain the substitutionary sacrificial character of the festival (Ex. 12:26-27). The substitutionary sacrifice was always central to Passover. The animal was destroyed as a substitute for those who deserved God's judgment but put their faith in him.

Third, Passover was to include a sacrificial meal. The participants ate what had been sacrificed. The festival meal became a symbol of the fellowship which now existed between the offerer and the one to whom the lamb had been offered. It was a fellowship (or peace) meal, resulting from the atoning blood of the sacrifice offered. Passovers subsequent to the inaugural one were more than commemorative because they too involved a sacrificial meal.

The instructions God gave for participation in the meal applied to each household. A lamb was to be sacrificed for each household or family (Ex.12:3). Verse 4 explains that this included each person in the household. The Hebrew literally says that the amount of lamb prepared was "according to the mouth of his eating," that is, enough for each person. The use of this phrase to describe the participants in the Passover indicates that all who could eat solid food ate the sacrificial lamb as well as the other elements. The first Passover meal was eaten by all who were old enough to eat solid food. Not all of the participants had the capacity to remember or to believe. For them the remembrance resided in the community's act of faith. Infants and children of believing households capable of eating the elements ate the Passover in Egypt. Faith and obedience were demanded of adults, and the children were brought along. "The whole community of Israel must celebrate it” (Ex. 12:47).

It is also significant that God fused three feasts together to comprise the celebration of the Passover festival: Passover, the Feast of Unleavened Bread, and the Feast of the First Fruits (Lev. 23:4-14). Understanding the latter two adds to an awareness that the Passover was uniquely anticipatory to the Lord's Supper.

God gave two specific commands for the Unleavened Bread festival. First, the people were to be careful to remove all leaven from their houses. Then they were not to eat any bread with yeast in it for seven days, beginning the day of the Passover (Lev. 23:6). Associating these practices with the Egypt Passover reminded the people of the haste of their departure; a departure so swift that the Israelites had not time to leaven their dough (Ex. 12:39). The unleavened dough was the only food for the next seven days for those who left Egypt. There was no leftover lamb because it had to be eaten or burned (12:9). The only bread that could be eaten for the following week was the unleavened bread prepared for the earlier Passover meal. Certainly children and infants ate this bread as they began the Exodus.

The dedication of the firstborn is mentioned frequently in the Pentateuch for God claimed the first fruit of the womb as well as of the field (Ex. 11:5; 13:2, 13, 15; Lev. 27:26; Num 3:13, 41). The tenth and final plague was the death of all those firstborn sons who were not members of believing and obedient households in Egypt. This Exodus experience established the belief that Israel was God's firstborn son (Hos. 11:1). Because God rejected (and destroyed) the firstborn of Egypt, Israel was forever obligated to be obedient as his chosen firstborn (Ps. 78:51f). Therefore, God includes a festival of the first fruits as part of the religious activities of the Passover season. This feast reminded them that everything (as represented by the first fruits of field and womb) belonged to God. This especially included Israel, God's firstborn son. The inclusion of the Unleavened Bread and First Fruits festivals gave the Passover a deeper spiritual meaning. It was not simply the celebration of national deliverance. It was the celebration of the accomplished sacrifice of the lamb by which Israel became God's firstborn. The historical deliverance of the Exodus is firmly grounded on the deeper spiritual deliverance which the many elements of the Passover celebration symbolized.

There is little doubt that Passover was considered a sacrifice. It was called a sacrifice (Ex. 12:27), the lamb was to be killed in the holy place God would choose (Deut. 16:5), and after the temple was completed the blood was to be sprinkled on the altar (II Chron. 30:16-17). The Passover meal fits the description of a peace offering and not a sin offering because the offerer did not eat the sin offering. It is true that the focus of the Passover is on propitiation. Yet it is impossible to eliminate the expiatory meaning the sacrifice had as well. In this way, the Passover combined elements (propitiation, expiation, and fellowship) that other sacrifice types separated. The Passover was a combination of all the elements of the other sacrifices.

God's requirement that only the covenant heads were to approach the altar did not exclude others from participation as did some of the other sacrifices. The meal involved the eating of that which had already been sacrificed (as is true of the Lord's Supper). The covenant head made the offering on behalf of those he represented. They participated by eating the sacrificial meal. The Passover was the only sacrifice that could be made by every federal head whether priest or not. This sacrifice, and not any of the others, anticipated the New Testament priesthood of all believers.

Participation in the Passover demanded appropriate acts of faith on the part of those participants capable of making them (and by them for those who were not capable). Several such expressions of faith were required. The appropriate lamb had to be identified and selected, the leaven had to be removed from the house (and the heart), the sacrifice had to be offered, and the proper ingredients for the meal had to be prepared. The New Testament application of all these principles underscores their spiritual meaning as understood by the believing Israelites. John the Baptist, seeing Jesus approaching, says, "Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!" (John 1:29). Paul exhorts the Corinthian Christians to "get rid of the old yeast that you may be a new batch without yeast—as you really are. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed" (I Cor. 5:7-8).

The Passover was the pattern for the rest of the sacrificial system and therefore for the Lord's Supper. It was uniquely typical to the redemptive work of Christ.

b. Later Developments

Central to Israel's religious experience and spiritual identity, the Passover underwent many changes to become the "Last Supper" Passover of the New Testament. Some of these changes were specifically commanded by God. Others were introduced due to historical circumstances or theological emphasis. Determining whether the Passover is normative for the practices of the Lord's Supper depends in part on careful consideration of these changes.

The first significant development took place shortly after the initial Passover and is given as a command by God to Moses. In Deuteronomy 16:1-8 God centralizes the sacrifices of the Passover. It is important to notice that this centralization only affects the sacrifice itself. Nothing is said to indicate that the eating of the sacrifice is centralized. Because requirements concerning the unleavened bread were unchanged, the Passover retained much of its character as a domestic practice. There is also no indication that the centralization means that the families could not continue to celebrate the Passover as family either in the central location or at home. Nor are any of the family members excused from any part of the festival except the appearance at the altar with the sacrifice. The only specification is that the sacrifice itself must be "at the place God has chosen to put his name."

The instructions given during the institution of the Passover in Exodus 12 and 13 indicate that the festival is for families and that participation is as a "sign on your hand and reminder on your forehead" (13:8-9). The whole congregation is to participate (12:47). The second and third recorded celebrations of the Passover involved the whole congregation, for the commands are addressed to the whole nation and the whole nation participated (Num. 9; Josh. 5).

Deuteronomy 16:16 records a second instruction from the Lord which added an additional requirement for subsequent Passover celebrations. Only the adult males were required to appear at the central location to present the sacrifice of the Passover. Again it is important to notice what is not said. It does not say that the families may not or should not appear. And it does not say that the sacrifice is only for the adult males. The covenant heads are now responsible for the presentation and the actual slaying of the sacrifice as they were responsible for its selection in Exodus 12. The recognition of a proper sacrifice is antecedent to the "discerning the body" command in the celebration of the Lord's Supper. The fact that only adult males selected that sacrifice did not exclude children. The adults recognized the sacrifice and it was offered for them and by them for their children. Deuteronomy 16:14 commands the whole nation, young and old, male and female, to observe the three feast seasons. Further, only the act of sacrifice was to be done by the adult males at the central location. The feast itself lasted seven days and was celebrated "at the tents" (16:7-8) or homes of the Israelite families. Centralized worship and sacrifice did not exclude families from the sacrificial meal but required that under the headship of adult males whole families were to eat before the Lord. Instead of being primarily a domestic observance, Passover became a pilgrim festival with families celebrating in that central location and in their homes upon their return. Certainly the later recorded instances of Passover support this point (Josh. 5:10-11; II Kings 23:21-23; Ezra 6:19-22; II Chron. 30:1-27; 35:1-19). In fact II Chronicles 35 describes the participation in the sacrifice and the sacrificial meal (vv. 4-5, 11-13) by family groups.

The changes affecting Passover, given by God in Deuteronomy, are substantial but are not evidence that children stopped participating in the sacrificial meal or that it became optional for them. The instructions which included them were clear in Exodus 12-13 and were not abrogated in Deuteronomy.

The growing importance of the Unleavened Bread festival as part of the Passover season is a significant change in the Passover as well. There is little specific reference in the Old Testament to this development. The Deuteronomic laws (Ex. 23:18; 29:23; 34:25; Lev. 2:11; Deut. 16:4) include many references to the importance of the removal of leaven. These laws probably are the source of the emphasis on the Unleavened Bread customs but do not describe what those customs were. The awareness of the spiritual meaning of the instructions concerning leaven during the Passover celebration can be found in several of the Passover accounts. According to Paul the removal of leaven referred to the identification and "removal" of sin as part of the Passover celebration (I Cor. 5:7). This is also the meaning of the leaven commands in the Pentateuch. Second Chronicles 35 describes Josiah's Passover. It is said to be the greatest Passover ever held during the monarchy (35:18). Its greatness was rooted in the complete national reform that preceded the celebration. The realization that self-examination and removal of sin was a necessary component of worthy participation is evident. Other Passover celebrations include this concept as well. The Joshua 5 celebration followed the rolling away of the "reproach from Egypt" as symbolized by circumcision (vv. 10-11). In Ezra 6, the Passover was celebrated after the removal of the uncleanness of pagan wives.

The responsibility for the removal of leaven was laid upon the covenant heads and religious leaders. Certainly the symbolic removal of leaven in the home provided the basis for the growing awareness of this spiritual dimension of Passover. The domestic practices connected with the leaven certainly involved children. It was only natural that they would come to understand the spiritual meaning of these practices. The corresponding command for self-examination at the Lord's Supper has its antecedent in the search for leaven prior to the eating of the Passover. For this meal to be eaten properly sin had to be recognized and removed. Adults capable of this action did so, but this did not deny children the privilege of the meal. The Passover contains discerning and examining activities that would also be integral to the Supper.

God required that families participate in other sacrificial meals (Deut. 12:4-7, 11-14; 14:22-26; 15:19-20; 16:9-17). In each case the sacrifice is only to be offered in a central location, but was to be eaten by the entire family in the presence of the Lord. The responsibility for proper observance of the feast was laid upon the adult males. If the qualifications for participation in Passover were an exception to the other sacrificial meals, specific instructions would have been given to indicate that fact. None were given. Israel understood that sacrificial meals were eaten by covenant families as expressions of gratitude and communion with God because of the efficacy of the sacrifice they were eating. Those who were old enough to understand must be responsible and must show an appropriate act of faith (selection of the lamb, searching out the leaven, slaying the lamb, and supervising the meal). Those who could not understand were led by their participation to ask pertinent questions so that they could be taught to understand and express the appropriate acts of faith.

Rooted in the Exodus experience, the Passover was connected to many other great acts of God by the writers of the Old Testament. Creation, for example, was inseparably linked to the redemption accomplished in the Exodus and memorialized in the Passover celebration (Ps. 136:4-15; Jer. 32:17-23; Ps. 77:16-20; 95:3-9; 135:6-9). The deliverance theme was an integral part of the annual Passover experience. This led to greater awareness of the meaning of this feast during the more crucial stages of Israel's history: Sinai (Num. 9), entrance into the land of promise (Josh. 5), Hezekiah's reform (II Chron. 30), Josiah's reform (II Kings 23), and the return from captivity (Ezra 6:19-22). Under Assyrian domination Isaiah foresaw deliverance as a Passover (Isa. 30:29), when God will "pass over" Jerusalem (31:5). The end of the exile is to be the final exodus, greater than the original (43:16-21). The gathering of the exiles (49:6) will be the work of the servant lamb (53:7). The Israelites did not remember Pentecost or Yom Kippur or Succoth at key stages of history—they recalled and celebrated Passover. The entire sacrifice system was necessary and pointed to the redeeming activity of God in history. But none of Israel's sacrifices were as central to their awareness of the covenant relationship to God as was the Passover.

Recognition of later redemptive acts of God as rooted in and patterned after the first Exodus led the Jews to conclude that the hope for the future is a final decisive exodus experience. This eschatological event was described as a new creation and a permanent exodus (Isa. 65:22 f). The servant of God who would be responsible for this task was the Messiah (Isa. 11:1-9). Having connected creation, the Exodus, and the future eschatological kingdom, the Jewish people were especially conscious of the coming Messiah during the Passover celebration. The inclusion of obviously messianic psalms in the celebration, the political movements which frequently surfaced during the Passover season (Luke 13:1; Acts 12:1-4) and the extra precautions taken by the Romans during this time all evidence the messianic emphasis of the Passover by the time of Christ. Not only was the Passover central to Israel's religious life, but it had become the hope, the source, and the pattern of their messianic consciousness. Its connection with and fulfillment by the Lord's Supper was the logical conclusion of this development.

B. New Testament

1. Passover and the Institution of the Lord's Supper

The Passover changed little in the Old Testament beyond the centralization described above. There was added awareness of the spiritual nature of its elements (leaven) but the practices remained intact. Families ate the sacrificial meal offered on their behalf by the covenant head. During the period following the return from captivity some changes began to occur. The sacrificial meal taken communally continued to be the focus of the Passover celebration.

Since families came to Jerusalem together for the Passover meal in the Old Testament, it is not surprising that this was true for the New Testament practices as attested by such sources as Josephus (Antiquities 11:4:8) and Luke (2:41-51). The rabbinic evidence indicates that a child was considered an adult at age thirteen at which time his parents were no longer responsible for his faithfulness to God; he was now responsible to the law. Some have interpreted this to mean that boys (children) did not participate in the Passover meal before that age. But that is an assumption based on the conclusion that the Old Testament celebration was closed to children. Since children were not excluded we must understand that age thirteen was not a child's first Passover meal but his first opportunity to select and offer the sacrifice for himself and for others. He was now old enough to be required to express faith even though he had already celebrated the post-sacrifice meal since he was a small child. If the Mishnah accurately reflects the conditions of the first-century celebrations, it certainly supports this position. Women and children did come to Jerusalem (Pesahim 10), and children did eat if they could eat as much as an "olive size" piece (Pisha 3; Pesahim 10:3,4). At thirteen a male was allowed to slaughter a Iamb on behalf of others (Pesahim 88) and anyone who could eat even a small portion must do so (Pisha 3).

The Passover, then, was the prototype for the entire sacrificial system, and the only feast elevated to the status of a sacrament. Since the Lord's Supper is the New Testament sacrificial meal, its relationship to the prototype is significant. It is not surprising that the Passover was connected to the Lord's Supper in a unique way. The Levitical system pointed to the atoning work of Christ, each practice pointing to some aspect of that work. Since the Passover is a more complete picture of the entire sacrificial work of Christ it is a more direct antecedent. The Passover contained all the elements of the various types of sacrifices. Of all the sacrifices and meals, the Passover alone was considered a sacrament. The sacraments of both covenants symbolize the same things. Certainly there is a unique relationship between the sacramental meals of the Old and New dispensations—a relationship not entirely shared by the other sacrifices and meals of the Levitical system. The evidence linking the Lord's Supper to the Passover is significant:

a. Jesus transformed the sacrificial Passover meal into the Lord's Supper. The fact that Jesus did not choose the Pentecost or Succoth meals to institute the new meal indicates the natural relationship the Passover and the Supper have. A careful study indicates how completely Jesus' work is based on the Old Testament feast cycle. Jesus died on Passover, was buried on Unleavened Bread, rose on First Fruits, and sent his Spirit on Pentecost. The choice of the Passover meal as the context for the institution of the Supper is of great significance in understanding the Supper. The Supper is linked redemptively and historically to the Passover. Jesus took great care to fulfill the Passover in every detail before and during the sacrificial meal. Jesus came into Jerusalem on the tenth day of Nisan, the day the Passover lamb was selected, as the servant lamb without blemish. The crowds sang Psalm 118 (John 12:13) a song already used as a Passover song and having a decidedly messianic message (Pesahim 5:7). Jesus instituted his Supper during the eating of the Passover meal (Matt. 26:17-19; Mark 14:12-16; Luke 22:7-16). The elements of that meal are invested with new meaning according to the nature of the new covenant. The practice of singing a hymn following the Supper is well documented as part of the Passover meal of the first century A.D. and is evidence of the connection between the Old and New meals. Clearly the Passover meal is the context for the institution of the Lord's Supper.

b. Jesus was identified as the Passover lamb (John 1:29; I Cor. 5:7). He met all specifications for that sacrifice. He was without blemish (Ex. 12:5/Heb. 4:15), his bones unbroken (Ex. 12:46/John 19:36), and his body the sacrificial meal (Ex. 12:15/John 6:48-51). Since the Lord's Supper is a sacrificial meal (feeding upon that which signifies the sacrifice) and Christ is the Passover sacrifice, the Lord's Supper is clearly the Passover meal to which all others point.

c. Jesus linked both the Passover and the Lord's Supper to the messianic banquet of the future. Isaiah had described such a banquet (25:6 f) and Jesus spoke of it during his ministry (Luke 13:28-30). At his last Passover (before instituting the Supper) he stated that he would not eat this (Passover) again until it is fulfilled in the kingdom (Luke 22-15-16, 18). But after instituting the cup he said, "1 will not drink of this fruit of the vine from now until that day when I drink it anew with you in my father's kingdom" (Matt. 26:29). Both the Passover and the Lord's Supper are fulfilled in the same glorious eschatalogical banquet.

The relationship between Passover and the Lord's Supper was clear from its institution. The sacrament continues in a different form but having the same essential meaning within its respective covenant.

. . . Jesus Christ observed the ancient passover feast with his disciples in the upper room. This meal thereby became, at the same time, history's last, valid passover and also the first Lord's Supper; for the one was transformed into the other. The redemption that had been anticipated in the passover is now commemorated in the supper. Moreover, even as the passover constituted a sacramental seal, both of Israel's glorious adoption by God, so that he should be their Father, and of their resultant, communal brotherhood under the national testament; so the supper has become the sacramental seal of our union with Christ and of our union with one another in the new testament in his blood.
(J. Barton Payne, The Theology of the Older Testament, p. 404)

It is clear that the place of each of the sacrificial meals in covenant life is the same. Membership in the covenant is the foundation for participation in the meal. When the capacity is present, discernment of the appropriate sacrifice and proper self-examination are required. In the absence of such capacity the remembrance resides in the covenant community of which the child is a member.

2. I Corinthians 10

The apostle Paul speaks of the proper observance of the Lord's Supper in chapter 11 of his first letter to the Corinthians. The basis for these remarks is found in chapter 10 as Paul supports his instruction about the proper celebration of the sacrament by an appeal to the nature of the Lord's Supper based on the Old Testament antecedents. Paul presents two separate points: The Lord's Supper is spiritual food and drink—this he supports by comparing it to the manna and water given miraculously in the wilderness—and it is a sacrificial meal—supported by its comparison to the sacrificial meals of the Old Testament.

Paul uses New Testament sacramental language to describe the experiences of Israel in the wilderness. The miracle of the Red Sea crossing is a baptism (10:2) and the manna from heaven and the water from the rock are eating spiritual food and drinking spiritual drink provided by the rock which is Christ (10:3-4). Israel's "baptism" and her eating and drinking had spiritual as well as physical significance. What Israel ate and drank was not simply God's miraculous sustenance but was rooted in the redemptive work of the Christ to come. Israel experienced baptism and an eating and drinking which had spiritual significance. Paul finds this experience to be typological (v. 11) and on it bases his instruction to the Corinthians to avoid idolatory. The typological experience also forms the context for his correction of the Corinthian excesses at the table which he gives in chapter 11.

His use of the typical events of the wilderness experience of Israel enlightens our understanding of the nature of the Supper. Manna brought life as part of the deliverance from Egypt and also became the continuing sustenance for their lives. Christ's death is not only the basis for our deliverance but spiritual food and drink on a continuing basis as well. It is spiritual not only because it comes from heaven but also because it sustains the partaker spiritually. In that sense the Old Testament manna and the New Testament bread are similar. Jesus calls himself bread from heaven and commands his followers to eat his flesh and drink his blood (John 6:31 ff).

Clearly the eating of manna, both physical and spiritual, was for all of the Israelite community. They were all baptized and they all ate and drank (10:2-4). The manna and water were given by God for the deliverance and sustenance of the entire community. Yet faith and faithfulness were to accompany the eating of the manna. That is the point of the passage. Israel ate the spiritual food and drank the spiritual drink but because they were unfaithful God still punished them. But the manna foreshadowed Christ as well—as the true manna (John 6:32) he is the sacrificial food. We feed on the bread which signifies his body. Since the entire community participated in the wilderness food and drink, even though faith and obedience were necessary, it would appear that the same would be true of the spiritual eating and drinking in the Supper. Certainly remembering and believing are demanded of those who are able. Punishment will result if these are not present. But for those who are not able, the remembering and believing are found in the community of which they are a part.

Paul also views the Supper as a sacrificial meal. He contrasts the eating and drinking of the Supper with participation in the pagan sacrificial meals. He shows that eating at both tables is wrong because sacrificial meals signify fellowship, one with the Lord and the other with idols or demons. Since one cannot fellowship with both it is improper to participate in the Lord's Supper and the idol feasts. He further argues that those Israelites who ate the sacrifices participated in the altar (v. 18). By doing so they entered into fellowship with God as signified by the meal. The analogy illustrates his view of the Lord's Supper. The basis for the meal is Christ's sacrifice. The atoning sacrifice opens the way to fellowship with God. This is signified by the meal in which the sacrifice is eaten.

In the Old Testament the adult males brought the sacrifices, and in several of the sacrificial meals, including Passover, the entire family ate the meal. Paul's comparison of the Lord's Supper with these sacrificial meals suggests the participation of the entire community in the meal. The Lord's Supper signifies fellowship which is the promise to those in covenant with God. For the children participation in the sacrificial meal, and by extension the Lord's Supper, is an act of faith and an opportunity to be nurtured in the Lord. Children should be taught from the beginning that they are in covenant fellowship with God and therefore cannot participate in the table of demons. This truth could be clearly taught if the children were in fellowship at the Lord's table. Excommunication could then be practiced for both baptized and professing members because all covenant members would have communicated at the table.

Although we cannot make a case for children at the Lord's table solely from these passages, Paul's analogy certainly does not forbid such participation and does give support to the participation of the entire community.

3. I Corinthians 11:17-34

This passage of Scripture has been considered more closely in discussion of children at communion than any other. Here the apostle Paul speaks directly to the issue of how the Lord's Supper is to be observed. The practice of the church in Corinth was not acceptable in the light of what had been taught by the Lord himself, and so Paul seeks to correct the Corinthians by reminding them of what the Lord's Supper really is according to the Lord's own teaching. Having done this, Paul warns against participation in the Lord's Supper in an unworthy manner. The way to forestall unworthy participation is the way of self-examination so that those who eat and drink will recognize the body of the Lord and in this way escape judgment to come upon those who partake in an unworthy manner.

Paul makes self-examination a necessary prerequisite for worthy participation in the Lord's Supper. Though admittedly Paul does not deal directly with the question whether small children or infants may partake, the inference is nevertheless frequently drawn from this requirement that they may not partake because they are incapable of the kind of self-examination prescribed. They have neither the mental nor the spiritual maturity and capacity that will insure freedom from condemnation. The implication of the argument seems to be that since self-examination is impossible, and, given the sinful condition of humankind, it is virtually inevitable that small children will participate in the Lord's Supper in an unworthy manner and so will bring judgment upon themselves, therefore they should not partake.

This argument doubtless accounts for the Westminster Assembly's assertion, in answer to Question 177 of the Larger Catechism, that the Lord's Supper is to be administered "only to such as are of years and ability to examine themselves." First Corinthians 11:28--29 is the only prooftext offered by that assembly in support of this restriction.

Although this argument is plausible and across the years has borne the weight of the case against admitting small children to the Lord's Supper, it does not appear to be a conclusive or even valid argument.

The situation in the Corinthian church to which Paul addresses himself is one in which believers are coming together with the intention of observing the Lord's Supper. However, their practice is such that in fact they are not observing the Lord's Supper. Paul disabuses the Corinthians of their delusion. "When you come together, it is not the Lord's Supper you eat" (v. 20). What they are doing is simply eating and drinking but in such a way that some are going hungry because they have no food, and others are getting drunk because they are using too much liquor. The Lord's Supper has been transformed into little more than an ordinary meal in which the brothers and sisters are not sharing equally.

The practice in Corinth bears no resemblance to what the Lord intended, as Paul now shows by contrasting what was happening there with what the Lord actually said. The modesty, simplicity, and dignity of the occasion as the Lord describes it is a far cry from the Corinthian practice. Moreover, this is clearly no ordinary meal because this is no ordinary bread and no ordinary wine. The stress is on the fact that this is the body of Christ and the cup is the new covenant in the blood of Christ. Believers partake not to satisfy hunger or to indulge thirst but in order to remember and to proclaim the Redeemer and his atoning work. When we remember and proclaim the crucified one to whom the bread and wine bear witness, then we are eating the bread and drinking the cup in a worthy manner.

To make sure that this happens each time the church gathers to observe the Lord's Supper, Paul urges self-examination before individual members eat the bread or drink the cup. This self-examination is not the kind of introspection that is designed to ferret out sins of greater or lesser magnitude so that these can be confessed and repented of. Nor is it even the kind of self-examination that is designed to determine whether one is possessed of a true and genuine saving faith. It is self-examination that is designed to disclose whether one really understands what he is doing, that this is no ordinary meal, that this is the Lord's Supper, and that the bread and the wine are the body and blood of the Lord. Only with this understanding can one remember and proclaim the atoning work of the Redeemer.

Having said in verse 28 that a man ought to examine himself before he eats of the bread and drinks of the cup, Paul gives us to understand in the next verse what the positive outcome of this self-examination ought to be. One ought to recognize the body and blood of the Lord. "For anyone who eats and drinks without recognizing the body of the Lord eats and drinks judgment on himself." This is what was happening in Corinth. The church there came together to observe the Lord's Supper, but the people did not recognize the body of the Lord. They had transformed a solemn occasion into an occasion simply to eat and drink, and for that reason they had brought the judgment of the Lord upon themselves.

Paul concludes by saying that the place to eat your meals and to satisfy your hunger and thirst is at home (v. 34). Observance of the Lord's Supper is to be characterized by appropriate decorum. Specifically, all should wait until each has been served so that all can partake together. The quantity of food and drink is not the point, the point is the remembrance and proclamation of the Lord in the bread and the wine.

Again, Paul does not deal directly with the question whether small children should partake of the Lord's Supper. What he does require is that those who do partake should know what they are doing. They should realize that this is no ordinary meal and that the elements of bread and wine have special significance in this context. As participants observe the Lord's Supper they are to remember the Lord according to his command: "Do this in remembrance of me." When they eat and drink in remembrance of the Lord, they "proclaim the Lord's death until he comes" (vv. 24-25).

At what age do people have this kind of discernment and understanding? Scripture does not give us a specific answer to this question. We can answer it only by reference to the general experience of the church with its covenant youth.

No one doubts that this discernment can be present in the late teens and few would deny that it can be present as early as twelve or fourteen years. All of the undersigned hold that this discernment can be present by the time a normal child reaches his fifth year, and that therefore nothing in I Corinthians 11:17-34 automatically prevents children this young from coming to the Lord's table. In some cases, this discernment may not be present in a five-year-old child because of delayed maturity, and in other cases this discernment may be present in even younger children. Paul does not specify an age at which children may come to the Lord's table. He is concerned only to specify a spiritual requirement, namely, that the communicant know what he is doing. This is no ordinary meal nor is it just a Sunday morning snack. The bread and the wine call to mind the death of Jesus Christ for the sins of his people, and in participating we are bound to Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior.

For some the personal and active remembrance of the Lord in eating and drinking and the consequent proclamation of his death until he comes is so integral to the observance of the Lord's Supper that it may legitimately be inferred from I Corinthians 11:17-34 that where the understanding of the meaning of the bread and wine are absent and where there is no capacity to discern the difference between the Lord's Supper and other kinds of eating and drinking, a child may not come to the Lord's table. One must recognize the body of the Lord (v. 29). This is a generally applicable prerequisite. Paul makes one application for this prerequisite in Corinth in a case where adults were not recognizing the body of the Lord. Another application is to immature children. Though the orbit of discourse does not require Paul to make this specific application himself, the church today should not forego this application.

For others the Pauline principle that a man ought to examine himself and ought to recognize the body of the Lord if he is to participate in the Supper is applicable only to those who have the mental and spiritual capacity to do so. The abuse that Paul intends to rebuke and correct is specifically ethical in character. If one does not do what he is able to do and ought to do, he ought to refrain from the Lord's table. To find anything in this passage that would keep very tiny children from the table, or even infants, is to shift the ground of the argument from the ethical to the physiological, and Paul does not intend for his words to be used in that way. In effect, no conclusions can be drawn from this passage about the participation of children who have not yet reached an age of discernment, however young that age might be. The passage offers neither prohibition nor warrant. An analogy can be drawn with those passages which made saving faith a prerequisite for baptism. They cannot be used to support an argument against infant baptism because they are applicable only where the capacity to repent and believe are present.

It can also be observed in this connection that though remembrance of the Lord is integral to the celebration of the Lord's Supper, not all will remember the Lord in the same way or with the same depth of discernment. The Passover which lies behind the Lord's Supper is no less a moment of remembrance in Israel of the great deliverance wrought by the Lord (Ex. 12:14). Not all who participated in the Passover would have even the capacity actively to remember what was memorialized in the observance. In this case the remembrance resides in the community of which the child is a member.

No one would argue that I Corinthians 11:17-34 gives the church warrant for bringing very young children to the sacrament. Many would argue that the kind of self-examination prescribed should be understood as introspection leading to a fairly sophisticated degree of repentance and faith and is not possible before puberty or even early adulthood. However, if we see Paul addressing the believing covenant community at Corinth with the concern that these people discern what is happening when the church sits down to the Lord's table, there is no reason not to see this discernment emerging much earlier in the consciousness of the covenant youth of the church. Therefore, no conclusive argument can be drawn from this passage that would prevent very young children from coming to the Lord's table.

III. THEOLOGICAL STUDY

The question whether children should partake of the Lord's Supper, and if so, at what age, can be considered not only in terms of the Old Testament antecedents and specific New Testament passages bearing directly on the question, but also in terms of several broader theological themes. None are more relevant in this connection than the theology of the covenant and the theology of the sacraments. Since in the Reformed conception the sacraments are to be seen as signs and seals of redemptive grace covenantally administered, the covenant and sacraments can be considered together.

A. The Idea of Covenant

The development of covenant theology has been a distinctive achievement of the Calvinistic wing of the Protestant Reformation. Initially covenant theology helped to explain why the Reformed churches continued to baptize infants even though it was now realized that grace did not come into the life of the infant through the administration of the sacrament itself with liturgically correct formulas by canonically ordained priests. Infants of believing parents belonged to the Lord Jesus Christ by virtue of the promises of the covenant and therefore ought to bear the mark of divine ownership. That is why they were to be baptized.

In the later development of covenant theology, the covenant took on a greater structural significance for understanding and describing the organic relationship between God and his people and consequently also for the scientific description of that relationship found in Reformed theology. The following may serve as a working definition of covenant: a covenant is a divinely, unilaterally, and graciously established relationship of life-giving union and communion between God and his people maintained in the bonds of mutual love and faithfulness. In every covenant there are two parts. There is first of all the unmerited grace of God embodied in the promises God makes to his people and displayed in the fulfillment of these promises in the course of time. Secondly, there is the obligation that devolves upon those who are sovereignly brought into covenant with God. This is the nonmeritorious but necessary condition for receiving and benefiting from the blessings that flow to people in the covenant relation. The heart of the covenant relationship may be stated in the words found in Leviticus 26:12 and echoed throughout Scripture: "I will walk among you and be your God, and you will be my people."

To be the people of the Lord, or to be in covenant with him, is a privilege bestowed by sovereign, electing, and saving grace. It entails the obligation to be what the Lord according to his law intends for his people to be. The Lord will not fail to be the God of his people. The essence of sin, on the other hand, is the failure of his people to fulfill their calling. Their failure results in the loss of covenant blessing and privilege in accordance with the warnings set out in the covenant documents which are the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments. Repentance and faith restore covenant blessing and privilege. In the way of this living and organic covenant relationship, the Lord fulfills his eternal and unchangeable purpose for his creation and for humankind in particular.

From the beginning of the world people have been related covenantly to their Creator. Although the very brief Genesis account of the primal period does not use the word covenant, the elements of covenant structure are readily discernible. At various times and with varying emphases, Reformed theology has spoken of this original covenant as a Covenant of Nature, a Covenant of Life, a Covenant of Works, or simply as a Creation Covenant. In the nature of the case, this original covenant was not redemptive in character. The human race was created in a bond of love and faithfulness with God in which people were given all things freely to enjoy and had the obligation to demonstrate their trust through obedience to the Lord. They were to give glory to the Lord by reflecting in the earth the covenantal love and faithfulness, or righteousness, that the Lord demonstrates toward them. The disobedience of Adam resulted in the forfeiture of blessing and privilege not only for himself, but also for the posterity he represented.

The Lord, however, was not to be frustrated in realizing the purpose for which he created the human race. The Lord sovereignly and graciously restored the covenant relationship between himself and the human race through a new Adam, the divine-human Savior, Jesus Christ. Whereas condemnation and death come to humankind through the first Adam, righteousness and life are revealed through the second. The human race is brought by way of repentance and faith into a covenant relationship with God on the foundation of the redemptive work of Christ, while impenitent individuals are eternally lost.

Just as the original creation is covenantally structured, so also the new creation, the work of re-creation or redemption, is covenantally structured. As the original work of creation unfolded over a period of time (the six days of Genesis 1), so the work of the new creation unfolds over a period of time, and at the present time is still in progress. Two main phases in this work of re-creation may be distinguished. The period before the coming of Christ is commonly called the Old Covenant, and progresses through a series of historical covenants known as the Noahic, the Abrahamic, the Mosaic, and the Davidic. These historical covenants reach their climax and fulfillment in the advent and revelation of Jesus Christ. With Jesus, the period of the New Covenant is inaugurated in which the church now carries out its evangelistic task and the people of God carry out their cultural task. These tasks include bringing the lost into a saving relationship with God so that they become one with God's covenant people, and training all of God's people to exercise dominion over the whole creation in the name of and for the glory of the Creator.

1. The Partners in Covenant with God

The Creation Covenant was made with Adam and in him with the whole human race that would eventually come from him and from his co-created partner, Eve. It was made with Adam and his children. The place of Adam in that covenant was unique, however, in that Adam served also as the guarantor of covenant blessing for his wife and descendants. His obedience in the covenant would bring blessing not only to himself, but also to his immediate family and to every person throughout history. In words later used to describe the Abrahamic covenant (Gen. 12:3), all peoples on earth would be blessed through Adam.

Although the blessings of the covenant would be guaranteed through Adam, his descendants, no less than he, would be obligated to discharge covenantal love, loyalty, and obedience toward God. Not only Adam, but also his children experience both parts of the covenant. Through Adam the blessings of the covenant would be guaranteed, including the disposition to meet the necessary but nonmeritorious conditions for the enjoyment of these blessings.

Just as the Creation Covenant is made with Adam and in him with the whole human race, so also the Redemption Covenant is made with the new humankind as recreated through the saving power of the second Adam. The second Adam becomes the guarantor of the Redemption Covenant. Through him covenant blessing and privilege are guaranteed to those recreated in his image; but they, no less than the human race under the first covenant, remain under the obligations that are integral to every covenant administration. Regeneration, the new birth, or the new creation on an individual and personal level assures the discharge of the nonmeritorious conditions of the Redemption Covenant. On the background of the Creation Covenant and the miserable failure of Adam that plunged the whole race into sin and condemnation, the Old Covenant administration of the Redemption Covenant (from the fall to the advent of Christ in Bethlehem) is designed to show the indispensable need for the unique, divine-human guarantor that is presented to the world in the gospel. Anything that falls short of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, however glorious in itself, cannot serve as the foundation for the restoration of union and communion between the Lord and his people.

2. The Signs and Seals of Covenant Union and Communion

In the administration of this covenant relationship, and particularly in the unfolding of the several historical covenants, the Lord was pleased to make use of various signs and seals to demonstrate and certify covenant blessing and privilege. In Reformed theology, the commonly recognized signs and seals of New Covenant grace are baptism and the Lord's Supper.

Baptism signifies and seals entrance into the covenant or the initiation of communion with God through union with Christ. As a covenant sign and seal, it serves a twofold purpose corresponding to the two parts that are characteristic of every covenant.

First, baptism is a sign and seal of God's gracious claim upon a person and his promise to the one baptized that he will indeed be Lord and God to this person. Second, and at the same time, baptism summons the one baptized to repentance, faith, and obedience. Hence there is the characteristic appeal in the New Testament for repentance and faith climaxing in baptism (e.g., Acts 2:38). Subsequent exhortations to obedience call to mind the significance of baptism in terms of union with Christ and the power of his resurrection (e.g., Rom. 6:1-14).

In terms of good order, adults are not baptized unless they are first prepared to testify to their faith and show at least the beginning of a life lived in obedience to Christ. For infants baptism comes first and constitutes an ongoing summons to faith and repentance. It is a summons of which they are initially ignorant, but of which they become progressively more aware through the gospel ministry of their parents and the church. The promises of the covenant are signified and sealed to them in their infancy, and come to fruition in their lives through the ministry of the Word accompanied by the efficacious working of the Holy Spirit. If instruction in the gospel does not bear fruit, covenant blessing and privilege are forfeited. Through unbelief and disobedience, children of the covenant all too frequently cut themselves off from the church, and their decision against Christ can only be ratified through the regular ecclesiastical disciplinary process.

Just as the covenant relation itself has two parts—promise and obligation—so the sign and seal of the covenant also has two parts. It is a sign and a seal of both blessing and command. What has been said of baptism must also therefore be said, mutatis mutandis, of the other covenant sign and seal, the Lord's Supper. The Lord's Supper differs from baptism, however, in that while baptism is a sign and seal of initiation into covenant relationship, the Lord's Supper is a sign and seal of continuity in that relationship. It is a sign and seal of continuity in communion with God through union with Christ. For that reason, unlike baptism, which ought to be administered but once to any person, the Lord's Supper is to be enjoyed repeatedly. "Whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes" (I Cor. 11:26).

The Lord's Supper is a sign and seal of God's gracious promise to be the God of his people through the redemption that is theirs in the blood of Jesus Christ. To participate in this sacrament is an act of faith. It is the Lord of the covenant who summons his people to the table and they come only because of his invitation and in response to it. Their faith must be a living and active faith, for this is the only kind of faith that can lay hold of Christ and his benefits. It is for this reason that those officebearers who are the stewards of the mysteries of Christ are concerned that those who come to the Lord's table are walking with the Lord before they are allowed to sit down at the table. Their walk with the Lord leads to the table, and the expectation is that they will continue to walk with the Lord when they leave the table.

Again, just as the covenant has two parts—promise and obligation—so also this sign of the Lord's Supper has two parts. It certifies participation in the grace of the New Covenant through a living and active faith in the Lord of the New Covenant.

B. The Participation of Children in the Lord's Supper

How does all of this bear on the question whether small children, or infants, should participate in the celebration of the Lord's Supper? The answer to that question depends on the emphasis given to the two parts of the covenant—the promise and the obligation.

If the promise side of the covenant is stressed, the accent will fall on the sovereignty of grace by virtue of which small children, even infants, are brought into covenant relation with God. It is not the parents who decide that their children will be numbered among the children of the covenant. It is the Lord who asserts his sovereign claim and according to whose command and prescription the sacrament of baptism is administered to believers and their children.

Similarly, the same accent will be found with reference to the Lord's Supper—the grace side of the covenant will be accented. In that case, the tendency will be to include children, and perhaps even infants, in the celebration of the sacrament prior to any formal or even informal profession of faith on their part. The leading thought is then that God's grace is sovereign and is not dependent on what a human being does first. The gracious promise of God, the promise of salvation, is to believers and their children, and to the children apart from any prior qualification on their part. That truth is transparently illustrated in the introduction of children to the Lord's table apart from a personal profession of faith.

The danger inherent in this approach is, however, that communicants appear to be absolved from the responsibility of assuming covenant obligations. The lesson conveyed is that they can enjoy covenant privileges and blessings without meeting the necessary but nonmeritorious conditions of the New Covenant. This is the danger of presumption that renders the warnings of the New Covenant nugatory, and at a later point can work havoc for the discipline of the body of believers.

If, on the other hand, the obligation side of the covenant is stressed as integral not only to the covenant but also to its signs and seals, and in particular to the observance of the Lord's Supper, then the tendency will be to exclude children from the Supper until after they have made public profession of faith and have demonstrated by their Christian conduct that they are, indeed, true and living members of the body of Christ. In extreme cases, they will not only have to testify to their faith with a credible profession, i.e., a profession that can be believed, but with a profession and testimony that constrains belief.

Here the accent falls on the biblical truth that the enjoyment of the blessings of the covenant is conditioned upon the exercise of a penitent and obedient faith. Before children and young people may be admitted to the Lord's table they must give evidence of vital faith and of personal covenant keeping. Such evidence could not be expected before early adulthood.

The danger inherent in this conception is that children and young people will think of themselves as outside of Christ, as outside of his kingdom and covenant, and in need of some sort of dramatic conversion experience in order to be found on the inside. This, in general, is the Baptistic conception which requires a conscious conversion experience for participation in the sacraments of both baptism and the Lord's Supper. It is also the Arminian conception with the basic idea that a saving relationship with God, although made possible by the Lord, must in the last analysis be initiated from the side of the human person.

A third conception, a hybrid of the previous two, is also possible. In this view baptism is thought of as signing and sealing the promise side of the covenant, the sovereign introduction of children into a covenant relationship, while the Lord's Supper accents the obligation side of the covenant, the obligation that covenant members have to remain faithful to the Lord. In baptism, the subject is passive, corresponding to saving grace that is divine and unilateral in its admission. Baptism, therefore, may be administered to infants. In the Lord's Supper, however, continuity in the covenant relationship is the main feature, and here the subject is active. Just as the believer is commanded to walk in the ways of the Lord in the whole of his life, so also he is commanded to come to the Lord's table, to take and eat, to drink, to do this in remembrance of Christ, and to proclaim the Lord's death until he returns. As those to whom the promises are given, not-yet-professing children of believers are excluded from the Lord's table. They will come to the table upon profession of faith. This is the pattern that has historically characterized the thinking and practice of the Christian Reformed Church to the present.

There is yet another way that commends itself by doing justice to the basic point that the covenant has two parts, that neither part may be stressed at the expense of or to the exclusion of the other, and that the parts of the covenant should not be stressed alternately or in succession. When both sides of the covenant are equally stressed, together with appropriate warnings, children who have been baptized and who are recognized as belonging to Christ by virtue of the promises made to believing parents, may be admitted to the Lord's Supper with a view to nurturing their walk with the Lord and cultivating a penitent and obedient faith.

Salvation does not depend on participation in the sacrament as a necessary means. For that reason it is not essential for infants or for very small children to be brought to the Lord's Supper. Participation in the Lord's Supper is an act of faith. When children begin to respond to the gospel and begin to have an understanding of Christ and the salvation offered in the gospel, when they are able to see and appreciate the difference between ordinary eating and what happens in the Lord's Supper, even if only in an elementary way, they may be brought to the Lord's Supper in the course of that nurturing process.

As the children develop, not only baptism but also the Lord's Supper becomes a basis for appeal, exhortation, and warning. Precisely as those who have been baptized into Christ and who participate in the sacrament of forgiveness and renewal, the children and young people of the covenant ought to be faithful to the Lord of the covenant who has brought them. In the absence of that love and faithfulness, which are the bonds of the covenant, they will certainly be destroyed according to the provisions of that same covenant.

The nurturing process including both Word and sacrament will, under the blessing of the Holy Spirit who generates and confirms faith in the elect, result in active faith and a lifelong walk with the Lord. Where that faith does not emerge, the children of the covenant who are disobedient will have to be excommunicated because of their rebellion. Since these young people have been excommunicated in their previous access to the Lord's table, it would indeed be possible, literally, to excommunicate not only professing members according to the provisions of the existing Church Order but baptized members as well. Indeed, consistories would feel more compelled to pursue a course of formal discipline in the case of delinquent baptized members who come to the Lord's table than they do under the present order in the case of delinquent baptized members who have never professed their faith and therefore do not sit down at the Lord's table.

The Lord has established his covenant with believers and their children. Baptism is a sign and seal of covenant union and communion with the Lord. There is no basis in the theology of the covenant or the theology of the sacraments for denying to growing children the Lord's Supper which repeatedly signs and seals to them continuation in that union and communion already signed and sealed in baptism. The only basis for denying them the sacrament of the Lord's Supper is not their youth or the immaturity of their faith but covenantal unfaithfulness, disloyality, and rebellion.

IV. PRACTICAL CONCERNS

A. Profession of Faith

Although profession of faith as a formal liturgical practice is not required in Scripture, we recognize that it is consistent with biblical teaching (Matt. 10:32; Rom. 10:9) and serves an important function in church structure. At present profession of faith functions in several ways in our churches. It is the transition from a child's functioning within the context of parental faith to an adult's taking responsibility for his own faith and identity as a Christian. It is also presently the means by which one is welcomed to participate in the sacrament of the Lord's Supper. In addition, in our confessional churches, we have viewed profession of faith as a time when a person affirms the truth of the confessions and proclaims loyalty to them. This affirmation usually involves some knowledge of the Heidelberg Catechism. (It might be noted that this is one place we differ from most Presbyterian churches—they require affirmation of the confessions only from officebearers.) Along with this we have attached the privilege and responsibilities of adult membership to public profession of faith: voting, budget/financial responsibilities, eligibility for office, and leadership positions in the church's ministry.

We see that many things are attached to making public profession of faith. In fact, though it is regrettable, public profession has frequently been seen and referred to as "joining the church." Even more unfortunate is the practice of many Christian Reformed churches of ending the education process with the act of public profession. The message in this is that a person has" arrived" at the highest level of knowledge and sanctification so that participation in education classes is no longer required or expected.

If baptized covenant children were taken to the Lord's Supper by their parents as a normal part of their covenantal privilege and responsibility, what would be the significance of public profession of faith? It might be argued that every participation in the Lord's Supper is a public profession of faith. On the other hand; it might be argued that such a public profession would serve as an important milestone in the covenant teenager's life. It could be a public recognition of adulthood in the covenant, a proclamation to all that this young person now understands himself/herself to be responsible for his/her relationship with God and for living a Christian life. It would also continue to function as an affirmation of the confessions and the beginning of rights and responsibilities of adult membership, such as voting, financial obligation, and eligibility for office and ministry leadership. Since there is no specific biblical guidance regarding covenant children on this matter, the church would need to decide how it could best be served if a change was made. It is clear that public profession of faith would continue to be maintained for those who come to faith and join God's family as adults.

B. Supervision

How would supervision of the Lord's table function if covenant children normally participated in the Lord's Supper? Essentially the supervision of the Lord's table by the elders would not be changed. Members in good standing and their children would be welcomed at the Lord's table, provided those children testify to a saving faith in Christ and know the difference between the Lord's Supper and ordinary eating.

As it is now, this supervision is done through the preaching of the Word of God as stress is laid on the covenant privileges and responsibilities. The responsibility of covenant children is to grow in faith as they are open to learning "what these things mean." Family visiting for parents of young children must include questions regarding the faithfulness of parents in instructing their children and preparing the family for the Lord's Supper. The emphasis for children would be on teaching them the meaning of the Supper and nurturing their budding faith (Ps. 22:9-10). It would also be appropriate for parents to consult with the elders when they feel it is time to take their children to the Lord's Supper.

At an early age children tend to accept the truth of their parents' faith. They quickly sense the importance placed on the sacraments by God's people. This simple faith is what needs to be valued and nurtured by the church. Valuing this basic trust and humility that Jesus pointed out as the quality of the children's faith tells our children in a powerful way who they are: members of God's family and united with Christ. At the same time we must recognize the danger that spiritually immature parents might think it would be "cute" for their little children to partake. Another potential danger is that the spiritually immature would view the Supper as magical. The best prevention of these dangers would be for new parents to be required to take a short course on their approaches to sharing their faith with their children. Such a course could be led by an elder or other mature Christian. This would be a valuable part of the supervision responsibilities of the elders as well as of great value to young parents.

C. Guests at the Lord's Supper

What about guests in our churches when the Lord's Supper is served? As is presently the case, guests would have to be informed of the church's policy of "closed" communion and be admitted to the table with their children if they are indeed brothers and sisters in Christ who are dedicated to living for him as their Savior and Lord. This policy would then also include the requirements for taking children to participate in the sacrament.

D. Discipline

What about discipline? It is important that we have a policy that deals with the normal growth process of the covenant child in the faithful covenant family. Then we would need to deal with the exceptions. Some of the specifics here would need to be worked out by consistories individually since they always deal with discipline cases on the basis of specific situations. It is clear that a person whose life is evidencing continued unfaithfulness to God is to be instructed by the elders not to participate in the Lord's Supper until such time as that person has repented. If that person has children, they also must be told that they are not free to take the children to the Lord's table. Covenant breaking has consequences for the entire family.

Another situation to be considered is the eighteen- or twenty-year-old who has not demonstrated his commitment to take his place as a responsible adult in God's family. Church discipline would require that this person be confronted with his covenant breaking. If he did not respond by assuming his covenant responsibilities, it would be necessary for the elders to censure that person, barring him from the Lord's table. If no repentance is evident, then eventual excommunication would be necessary.

Positive aspects of discipline would include the encouragement of parents by means of preaching, adult education, and family visiting to take their covenantal responsibilities very seriously. We assume this is done presently in our churches. It is our observation that many parents are tempted to abdicate this responsibility to the Christian school or church school teachers. It is important that this covenantal responsibility be stressed from baptism on, and not be left to others in the hope that someone else will lead our children to grow in faith and relationship to Jesus Christ.

V. SUMMARY STATEMENTS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

A. Conclusions

The question with which this study began asked whether the Christian Reformed Church should admit children to the Lord's Supper and, if so, at what age and under what conditions. The conclusion to which we are brought by the preceding biblical and theological study is that children of believing parents ought to be brought to the Lord's table by virtue of the fact that the covenant is with believers and their children in union and communion with Christ. The sacrament of the Lord's Supper is a sign and seal of that covenantal union and communion.

At the same time, participation in the sacrament of the Lord's Supper is an act of faith, and therefore the children who do commune should do so with a faith that understands what is happening in the Lord's Supper and that embraces the Redeemer who offers himself to them in the bread and the wine. This faith need not be attested by a public profession with the implied degree of maturity now represented by the synodically approved forms for public profession of faith. It need not be the mature faith of an adult, but a faith that lays hold of Christ simply and sincerely.

The celebration of the Lord's Supper and the admission of persons to participation in the sacrament should remain under the supervision of the consistory of the local church. As at present, the consistory must satisfy itself so far as possible that those who are admitted to the Lord's table are coming in a worthy manner. This can be done informally through personal contact with the children involved and with their parents.

On the basis of these conclusions Recommendations 1 through 4 are offered (below) as a means to implementation. An amendment to Article 59-a of the Church Order is offered in order to dissolve the connection between a formal profession of faith and admission to the Lord's Supper. At the same time the new formulation is designed to preserve the consistory's supervision with respect to the admission of believing children as well as believing parents to the sacrament.

Once the historic connection between public profession and admittance to the Lord's table is dissolved, the question as to the necessity and legitimacy of public profession of faith as we have come to know it in the Christian Reformed Church arises with renewed urgency. What is the biblical warrant for this liturgical ceremony and what is its theological and practical significance in the life of maturing covenant children? The report acknowledges that profession of faith as a formal liturgical practice is not required by Scripture. This question becomes even more pressing in the light of our common commitment to "reject all human innovations and all laws imposed on us, in our worship of God, which bind and force our consciences in any way" (Belgic Confession Art. 32). Therefore, Recommendation 5 asks for a study of this question with a view to resting the practice of the church on a clear biblical foundation.

Finally, your committee recognizes that to dissociate admission to the Lord's table from a formal and public profession of faith so that very young children can partake of the sacrament represents a significant departure from the current and long-standing practice of the Christian Reformed Church. While many would be prepared to take this step immediately and are asking for it, many more have not come to the same conclusion. The actions contemplated in Recommendations 1 through 5 have the potential for becoming divisive in the life of the denomination. For this reason Recommendation 6 is offered to insure that if the changes are made, they will be made with the knowledge and support of the constituency of the church.

Recommendation 6 does not deny the right of a given synod to make regulations that are binding upon the church, if such regulations are in accord with the Word of God, nor does it deny the right of a synod to revise the Church Order. It does ask that Synod 1988 not exercise that right in order to give the churches opportunity to come to a common mind with synod. In taking actions of the magnitude proposed in the following recommendations a synod is well advised to seek the wisdom of the church at large in addition to taking counsel with itself.

Those who are initially sympathetic to the recommendations are asked to exercise patience so that the whole church can move ahead together, if indeed, the recommendations embody the will of Christ for his church. Those who are initially disinclined to accept the recommendations are asked to give them serious consideration in the light of the Word of God, bearing in mind that scholars and ministers, as well as laymen—all fully committed to the inspiration and authority of Holy Scripture—are found on both sides of the questions discussed.

B. Recommendations

Your committee makes the following recommendations to Synod 1988:

1. That synod declare that the churches are warranted in admitting the children of the covenant to participation in the Lord's Supper because of their inclusion in the Covenant of Grace and because of the covenantal promise they have of a saving union and communion with Christ.

2. That synod declare that since participation in the Lord's Supper is an act of faith on the part of those communing, the consistory should admit to the Lord's supper those covenant children who evidence both the capacity and the desire to remember and proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.

3. That synod declare that a formal profession of faith in the presence of the whole congregation with the use of the synodically approved forms is not a prerequisite for participation in the Lord's Supper.

4. That synod declare Article 59-a of the Church Order be amended to read as follows: "Consistories shall admit to the Lord's Supper children who are members by baptism and who testify to a saving faith in Christ. Each consistory shall satisfy itself through personal interviews with the children and their parents concerning their understanding of the sacrament and their motivation for participation. The names of those who are to be admitted to the Lord's Supper shall be announced to the congregation at least one Lord's day before their initial participation in communion."

5. That synod appoint a committee of five ministers and elders to study the biblical warrant for and the theological and practical significance of public profession of faith for covenant children, and to report to Synod 1990 with recommendations.

6. That synod declare Recommendations 1 through 4 above, if approved, to be inoperative unless and until they are reaffirmed by Synod 1990, in order to give the churches opportunity to test these decisions by the Word of God.

Committee to Study the Issue of Covenant Children Partaking of the Lord's Supper
Albert Helder, chairman
J. Barry Koops
Russell Maatman
Norman Shepherd
Raynard Vander Laan
Marvin Van Essen

ADDENDUM TO MAJORITY REPORT

Although we are basically in accord with the above report, we do not feel that Recommendations 2 and 4 flow from its contents. We believe that the arguments of this report lead to the conclusion that the nourishing of faith, which is a function of the Lord's Supper, should be given and should be made available as soon as the child is a participating member of the worshiping covenant community, regardless of age or capacity.

Having expressed these reservations we affirm the majority report to be an accurate summary of the biblical and theological teachings concerning participation in the Lord's Supper. Because the recommendations concerning participation are a greater improvement in the inclusion of children in the worship of the covenant community, we accept the recommendations given.
J. Barry Koops
Russell Maatman
Raynard Vander Laan

II. Minority Report

INTRODUCTION

There is probably no greater joy than nurturing covenant youth. There is probably no greater blessing than realizing that the children of God's people are really the children of God himself. And so it has been both a joy and blessing for us as ministers and elders of the church to consider how Christ wants us to use the sacrament of the Lord's Supper in nourishing the growth of his own children.

In 1986 our committee presented an initial report to the churches. We are gratified that many, both within and outside our denomination, have found that report to be helpful, quoting from it in published articles, referring to it in public debates, even providing it as background information for delegates who have to decide similar issues in other denominations.

At the same time, Synod 1986 recognized that certain areas in the report needed further discussion and study. And so, as the majority report outlines in greater detail, we were sent back to work for two more years of study. What we are presenting now is the result of that study as supported by a minority of the committee.

Although we remain appreciative of much in the majority report, it has become clear that the majority report secured that majority only by incorporating into its report a fundamental contradiction on the critical theological issue in the study whether youth are admitted to the Lord's Supper because of a demonstration of faith or simply because of their status in the covenant.

It was on this issue that the 1986 reports had divided most sharply. But now, as noted in the addendum attached to the majority report by committee members Koops, Maatman, and Vander Laan, there remains sharp disagreement among the signers of the present majority report as to which of those two positions the present majority report actually supports.

As a result, then, the present majority report really could not present a clear and consistent review of the foundational principles on which its recommendations are based. Neither was the present majority able to achieve a unified point of view among the various sections of its report, authored originally by various members of the committee who held opposing views on what the conclusions should be.

In some respects, then, we are hesitant to submit a minority report since there are many points in the majority report with which we agree wholeheartedly. However, with full regard for our colleagues who signed the majority report, we believe that the church is served best when presented also with a unified report, integrated and consistent with recommendations which embody the biblical principle that covenant children are brought to the Lord's Supper when they confess their faith.

We present the following outline of the material covered in this minority report:

I. Review of Foundational Principles

A. Biblical
B. Confessional
C. Theological
D. Historical

II. Answers to the Questions Raised by the Synod of 1986

A. Biblical Requirements for Participation
B. History of Children's Participation
C. The Relationship to the Covenant
D. The Relationship to the Passover
E. A Study of I Corinthians 10 and 11
F. The Relationship to Public Profession of Faith

III. Pastoral Concerns and Guidelines

A. Issues in Nurturing Covenant Youth
B. Pastoral Guidelines for Admission to the Lord's Supper

1. Faith Required
2. Profession Expected
3. Admission as Soon as Faith Is Present
4. Profession as Expression of Faith

IV. Recommendations

I. REVIEW OF FOUNDATIONAL PRINCIPLES

Perhaps almost every Christian parent and elder in the church has been asked by a covenant child, "When may I start eating the bread and wine at Communion?" We believe that the only responsible answer can be, "When you are able to do it with meaning." As the 1986 report said, "When a child is baptized into God's covenant, one more place is set at the table of the Lord. . . . Children are [then] to come to the Lord's Supper as soon as they meet the biblical requirements for meaningful participation in the sacrament" (Acts of Synod 1986, pp. 347, 361).

Even when a child asks, "How old do I have to be?" the only responsible answer still must be simply, "When you are old enough to do it with meaning." Since the Bible does not specify an age for participating in the sacrament the church has no right to do so either. Instead, the church just needs to make clear what the Bible says are the requirements for participating in the Lord's Supper with meaning.

No synod has the right to tell the elders of the churches "at what age" they can admit children to the Lord's Supper. The question facing synod is only, "What are the biblical standards for meaningful participation in the Lord's Supper which elders in the local churches can use as they admit covenant youth to the Lord's Supper?"

That is the question this report attempts to answer. A sound answer to that question will require sound biblical, confessional, theological, and historical arguments. This section of our report attempts to provide just that. However, because we are convinced that, in general, the 1986 report laid good ground-work for those arguments, we will only sketch the arguments here. Those who wish further discussion of these issues should consult Section II of this report as well as the 1986 majority report.

A. Biblical

1. The Requirement for Covenant Membership

Many Christian Reformed catechumens have learned to define sacraments as "signs and seals of the Covenant of Grace." And although that language is not found in any official church confessions, it does express a fundamental reality regarding the sacraments. Sacraments benefit those who are part of the Covenant of Grace through which God enters into a saving relationship with his people.

No one then ought to be brought to the Lord's table who is not a member of the Covenant of Grace. Only those who "belong to Christ and thus are Abraham's seed, heirs according to the promise" (Gal. 3:29) should be admitted to the Lord's Supper.

In this minority report, however, that point need not be stressed for we are in full agreement with the majority. We endorse all that was said in the 1986 majority report as well as the present majority report regarding the absolute requirement of covenant membership for coming to the Lord's table.

However, three of the committee majority indicate that they believe the majority report supports the contention that membership in the covenant is the only biblical requirement for admission to the Lord's table. To that statement we take strong exception. We believe that the Bible also outlines a requirement for faith.

2. The Requirement for Faith

It was Jesus himself who said that the blessing of the bread and wine at the Lord's table is received only when we receive his own person by faith as we eat and drink. The Lord who declared at the Last Supper that the bread was his body and the cup was his blood is the same Savior who promised, "Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life"(John 6:54).

That hardly means, though, that Jesus was teaching that the sacrament would benefit anyone, even covenant children, apart from faith. Indeed, earlier in the same chapter a parallel statement was given by our Lord, "Everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life" John 6:40). Clearly, Jesus was teaching that the person who "eats my flesh and drinks my blood" (as in the sacrament) is the person who "looks to the Son and believes in him."

As a matter of fact Jesus himself directly confronted the notion that eating and drinking him might have power apart from faith. Because his disciples already had made that error, Jesus immediately warned them not to focus their attention on the physical elements. Instead he directed their attention to the question of faith. "The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life. Yet there are some of you who do not believe”(John 6:63-64).

3. The Shape of the Faith Required

In fact, the Bible not only indicates that faith is necessary to participate meaningfully in the Lord's Supper. The Bible also describes just what that faith will have to be like.

First, those who partake must discern the body of the Lord (I Cor. 11:29). "Those who come to the table will need to discern that this meal is not just a Sunday morning snack but is, in fact, a participation in the body and blood of Christ given for the life of his people (I Cor. 11:25-26)" (1986 Agenda, p. 355).

Second, those who eat at the table will be blessed when they remember Christ's death in their eating and drinking. Neither is remembering something which is required only of those who are capable of remembering. It is the command of Christ himself, "Do this in remembrance of me" (Luke 22:19), which makes remembrance an integral part of the sacrament itself. Therefore, since remembrance is part of the essence of the sacrament, there really can be no meaningful participation in the Lord's Supper apart from such remembrance.

Third, all who truly participate in the sacrament must proclaim the Lord's death in the eating and drinking. According to the Scripture the sacramental eating and drinking, by its very nature, must be a proclamation of the Lord's death until he comes (I Cor. 11:26). When people partake without that proclamation then, as in Corinth, "It is not really the Lord's Supper you eat" (I Cor. 11:20). As the 1986 report expressed it, "Without such proclamation no true celebration of the sacrament can take place at all" (1986 Agenda, p. 355).

Those looking for a more extensive consideration of those biblical requirements would do well to consult the 1986 report. One caution, however. Many readers of the 1986 report apparently interpreted the committee's emphasis on faith as requiring a highly developed intellectual understanding of a system of doctrine. It is far better, however, simply to allow Scripture itself to define the faith which is required; namely, faith that discerns, remembers, and proclaims Jesus Christ while partaking.

In short we believe the Bible's teaching is clear. Only covenant members who have faith to discern, remember, and proclaim the Lord's death in their celebration of the sacrament can partake with meaning. And although helpful in enriching our understanding of the sacrament, indirect reference from other biblical passages and argumentation from theological assumptions ought never to be permitted to obscure this rather clear scriptural instruction regarding the faith required to join the Lord's Supper with blessing.

B. Confessional

Reformed churches maintain confessional standards so that they will not make decisions apart from the biblical understanding of those who preceded them. And while the confessions must always be tested by the standard of Scripture and changed when the Spirit gives new insight, it is still important for the church to consider carefully how proposed decisions fit into the confessional standards of the church.

On this issue the confessions of the Reformed churches are explicit. Faith is a prerequisite for meaningful participation in the sacrament. According to the Heidelberg Catechism, for instance, faith is "confirmed" by the sacraments only after it is "produced" by the preaching of the gospel (Q & A 65). More specifically, the Belgic Confession makes clear that in the case of the Lord's Supper that faith must be present at the time of partaking because the meaning of the sacrament comes only to believers "when eaten -- that is, when appropriated and received spiritually by faith" (Art. 35).

Indeed, the confessions are specific in requiring an active faith before partaking at the sacramental table. The Heidelberg Catechism answers the question, "Who are to come to the Lord's table?" (Q & A 81) by listing the same criteria as it listed in its definition of true faith (Q & A 21). That is, there must be a renunciation of sin, a trust in Christ's righteousness, and evidence of the life of salvation. Moreover, the Belgic Confession issues the blanket declaration, "No one should come to this table without examining himself carefully" (Art. 35).

It is true, of course, that the confessions do not explicitly address the issue of children's participation. However, that silence can hardly be construed to mean that the confessions are indifferent to the matter of whether children come to the table. After all, the issue of children's participation was debated vigorously at the time of the Reformation and could not have been overlooked in drafting the confessions. The reformers wisely avoided adding any age requirement to the confessional outline of the biblical requirements for participation. However, to surmise that the confessions intend to exempt children from the biblical requirements seems ill-founded.

C. Theological

The theological foundations for admitting children to the Lord's Supper cannot be considered apart from a proper understanding of the covenant which embodies God's relationship with his people. We believe that the majority report submitted this year covers that subject admirably, as did the 1986 majority report (Agenda 1986, pp. 357-59). We hope, therefore, that our failure to include a separate treatment of covenant theology is not interpreted to mean a lack of concern for the issue. Covenant theology is critical but it is covered so well in the majority report that we simply endorse what is written there.

1. The Nature of the Sacraments

At the same time it has to be emphasized that the nature of the sacrament is as critical to the discussion as is the nature of the covenant. Particularly important to remember is that our Lord has established two different sacraments, each of which have distinctive roles to play within the experience of the covenant community.

Our Lord established two sacraments for the welfare of his church, baptism and the Lord's Supper. And it is not presumptuous to suggest that Christ established two sacraments instead of one because the two sacraments have different purposes and different applications within the believer's life. The sacraments are not repetitive. Indeed, to say that whoever receives one sacrament must receive the other comes perilously close to implying that the sacraments are redundant, with no difference in purpose or application.

Scripture, however, makes clear that baptism is a mark of initiation into the covenant community intended as a once-for-all activity, a mark of new birth as we are buried and raised with Christ (Col. 2:11-12). The Lord's Supper, on the other hand, is a nourishing event intended by our Lord to be a repeated source of sustenance ("As often as you do this. . ." I Cor. 11:25). The Lord's Supper is a communion of the union marked by baptism.

Therefore, when the church baptizes infants it is not automatically bound also to offer the Lord's Supper to them at that time. It is true that catechumens have often been taught that the church baptizes infants on the basis of the covenant which includes children. And so sometimes Reformed Christians forget that the church baptizes children of believers because of specific biblical commands to do so (Acts 2:39; 16:31).

On the other hand, the situation is quite different regarding the Lord's Supper. There is no parallel biblical command to bring children and whole households to the Lord's table. Indeed, to the contrary, there seems to be explicit biblical evidence which indicates the Lord's Supper will nourish only those covenant members who have faith to discern, remember, and proclaim Jesus Christ while they partake.

2. The Growth of Faith

Some Reformed Christians are so sensitive to those who deny covenant status to children of believers that they fail to recognize that the Bible itself indicates a transition point even within the Old Testament covenant community.

In its thorough discussion of the Passover, the majority report indicates that at a certain point youth began to function differently during the observance than they had when they were younger. To quote the majority report, at a particular age a Jewish boy had "his first opportunity to select and offer the sacrifice for himself and for others. He was now old enough to be required to express faith. . . ."

Therefore already in the Passover a transition by covenant members to expression of faith was expected and as argued earlier in this report, the Bible clearly makes that expression of faith the heart of the Lord's Supper. The New Testament, then, is not introducing a new covenant distinction. That transition point was present already in the Old Testament, indeed in the Passover. However, because of the heightened personal demands of the new covenant, the sacramental nourishment of the new covenant is graciously given to strengthen just such personal response.

D. Historical

One of the problems which confuses the discussion of the Lord's Supper is an all-too-common assumption that this is the first time that the church has faced this issue. It might be well, however, to recall that parts of the Christian church, at least, have practiced children's communion throughout history, and we can be instructed by their experience.

Here again, we do not wish to dispute the fine historical summary contained in the majority report. Indeed, the summary offered by the majority demonstrates clearly that the issue of children's participation is scarcely a new debate in the church. We are convinced, however, that certain historical considerations are worth further examination.

1. The Reformation Experience

As noted by the majority, the reformers continued the medieval practice of withholding the sacrament from very young children. We are uncomfortable, however, with the insinuation of the majority that somehow the reformers continued that pre-Reformation practice without thought or reason.

Indeed, Calvin himself was challenged on this issue by Servetus, a leading Anabaptist. And certainly, as history has shown, Calvin generally took Servetus's comments quite seriously. Furthermore, it should be observed that Calvin maintained his position despite being aware that in so doing he was distancing himself from Augustine, whose arguments Calvin usually utilized to challenge medieval practices! From a historical point of view, then, the assumption that Calvin and other reformers maintained their practice through a rather uncritical acceptance of medieval church polity seems unfounded.

Furthermore, it is well known that Calvin did not hesitate to revitalize participation in the Lord's Supper by advocating its weekly observance. To think, then, that he simply overlooked the possibility of also revitalizing children's participation in the Lord's Supper seems equally unwarranted.

2. The Puritan Experience

It is unfortunate that the majority report overlooks the one era in church history when a significant segment of the Reformed churches did separate profession of faith from access to the sacraments. To us it only seems prudent that the experience of the eighteenth-century New England Puritan churches with the so-called "Half-Way Covenant" should be considered before twentieth-century Reformed churches launch into a similar experiment.

The New England churches had been pressured to allow nondelinquent, yet nonprofessing, members to utilize what had been called the "sealing ordinance" of having their children baptized. This led to an assumption by Solomon Stoddard and others that perhaps the sacraments should be viewed as "converting ordinances" which are designed to create faith, not simply confirm faith.
The problem was that soon the churches were filled with nominal Christians, those who wanted access to the rites of the church but who didn't profess the experience of faith. In fact, historians now typically attribute the decline of New England Calvinism largely to the results of the Half-Way Covenant. For apparently, despite Stoddard's best intentions, the sacraments proved to be less than effective as"converting" ordinances.

Could the same results be in store for contemporary Reformed churches if they separate access to the sacraments from profession of faith? How, for instance, will a church deny nonprofessing parents the right to have their children receive the sacrament of baptism when they themselves have been receiving the sacrament of the Lord's Supper without professing their faith? As in New England the intentions may be good. The church should carefully consider, however, whether as in New England, the results of those good intentions may be harmful both to the spiritual life of covenant youth and the vitality of the churches.

II. RESPONSE TO QUESTIONS RAISED

The 1986 Synod requested our committee to give further attention to several specific areas of concern (Acts of Synod 1986, p. 620). What follows is our response to that request.

A. Biblical Requirements for Participation in the Lords Supper

Our basic response to this request is found in Section I, A of this report. That is the biblical requirement for meaningful participation in the Lord's Supper is faith that discerns, remembers, and proclaims the body of Christ while partaking.
That position was argued at length in the 1986 report and need not be repeated here. As the addendum to the present majority report indicates, there isstrong disagreement within the majority position precisely over this issue. Perhaps that is why the present majority report neither attempts to refute the 1986 report on this score nor presents its own alternative.

In any event, we are content simply to affirm once more Section C of the 1986 report (Agenda 1986, pp. 354-56) as elaborated in Section I, A of the present report.

B. The History of Children's Participation in the Lord's Supper

It is unfortunate that the 1986 report provided only a sketchy outline of the history of this issue. At the same time we are pleased with the section of the present majority report which fills in much of the historical detail. On this point we are pleased to affirm the majority report as our own.

C. The Relationship of the Lord's Supper to the Covenant

We are pleased with the very excellent section of the majority report which discusses the nature of covenant theology as it relates to participation in the Lord's Supper. Indeed we would also affirm that section of the majority report as our own.

It is helpful to understand the way in which the Lord's Supper fits into our theological system regarding the covenant as presented in the majority report. However, we are also convinced that it is equally important to examine the way in which the Bible itself relates the Lord's Supper to the covenant relationship between God and his people.

We are troubled that the majority seems to assume that there is only indirect biblical teaching on this subject. And so they concentrate on finding indirect links through the Passover and systematic theological concepts regarding covenant theology. We are especially troubled about the majority's reliance on indirect evidence and theological conceptualization because the Bible does, in fact, give direct teaching regarding the role of the Lord's Supper in the covenant.

Jesus provided that link himself when he instituted the Supper saying, "This is my blood of the covenant," a quotation taken from Exodus 24. That link is further developed in Hebrews 8-10 where the blood of Jesus is portrayed as the mark of the new covenant. And to make that point the writer of Hebrews also quotes from Exodus 24 and reminds the readers that Christ's blood has now superceded the "blood of the covenant" described in Exodus 24 (Heb. 9:20).

So it becomes apparent that the New Testament regards Exodus 24 as a key passage for understanding the Lord's Supper. It is strange, then, that this passage is generally overlooked in the current discussions. We are surprised, in fact, that the majority report of this committee ignores it completely despite its having been discussed already in our 1986 report (Agenda 1986, p. 350).

What, then, does Exodus 24 describe? It portrays the sealing of the Mosaic covenant. The law has been given and the people have promised to obey. As such, a concrete historical form finally had been given to the Covenant of Grace made with Abraham over six hundred years earlier. But this historical expression of the Covenant of Grace also needed now to be signed and sealed. The Mosaic covenant which gave form to the Covenant of Grace needed a sign and seal to mark it. In short, it needed what would now be called a "sacrament."

And that's what Exodus 24 describes. Moses sacrificed young bulls as fellowship offerings to mark the covenant. Furthermore, he gathered the blood from those sacrifices and spread it over both covenant partners, the people and the altar of God. Then, significantly, Moses said, "This is the blood of the covenant," the phrase Jesus later quoted when establishing the Lord's Supper. In this way Jesus explicitly declares that his death, which the Lord's Supper commemorates ("the new covenant in my blood" [Luke 22:20]), fills the same role in establishing the new covenant that the fellowship offering had filled in establishing the Mosaic covenant.

However, the most fascinating part of Exodus 24 is still to come. Following this sealing of the covenant through the blood of the fellowship offering the leaders of the covenant nation then climbed up the sacred mountain "and saw the God of Israel" (v. 9). And it is there on the mountain that God's people celebrated the fellowship with God provided by this covenant. For there on the mountain God himself received the leaders of Israel into his presence where "they saw God, and they ate and drank" (v. 11).

Already in the Old Testament, then, God's people have a meal which serves as a sign and seal of the Covenant of Grace. Here in Exodus 24 is a meal where the people of God, covered by the blood of the covenant, ate and drank in peace and friendship with their covenant Lord. And it is that meal which Jesus says he is reestablishing as the mark by which to celebrate the new covenant in his blood. There is, therefore, one Old Testament event which functions in the old covenant the same way the Lord's Supper functions in the new covenant. It is the covenant-sealing fellowship meal recorded in Exodus 24.

Still it has to be remembered that in one critical respect the Lord's Supper differs from the fellowship meal of Exodus 24. Namely, the meal which marked the Mosaic covenant was never repeated. Jesus, however, explicitly commands that the fellowship meal he establishes be repeated "as often as" the church observes it (I Cor. 11:25).

But why wasn't the Mosaic meal repeated? The book of Hebrews makes that clear. The Mosaic fellowship meal was only a mystical anticipation of what was to come and couldn't continue to be repeated because the blood of atonement which would make that peace possible had not yet been shed. So then, rather than send Moses and the leaders of Israel back down Mount Sinai with instructions to continue this fellowship meal, instead God calls Moses up the mountain to receive instructions for setting up the entire Old Testament sacrificial system of worship.

The celebration which sealed the Old Covenant did not, then, focus on a fellowship meal. Instead it centered on the bloody sacrifices which could serve as a constant reminder that the Mosaic covenant was only a partial fulfillment of the Covenant of Grace made with Abraham. The day of eating and drinking with God would have to wait. True, the blood that was shed in the Mosaic covenant pointed the way to the final fulfillment of the Covenant of Grace. But those repeated sacrifices demonstrated clearly that the day had not yet arrived when that Covenant of Grace was fulfilled and all God's people would be able to sit down and eat with him in peace.

All that changes, though, when Jesus comes. Now the fellowship meal which seals the Covenant of Grace can finally be established as Jesus quotes from Exodus 24 and announces, "This is my blood of the covenant" (Matt. 26:28); "This cup is the new covenant in my blood" (Luke 22:20). In this way Jesus declares that a new covenant situation has arrived. The old Mosaic covenant has been superceded by the new covenant in Christ's blood. And his blood will be sufficient to permit an end to the ceaseless shedding of blood which had been marking the covenant up until that point.

At the same time Jesus opens up the meal which only the elders had eaten on Mount Sinai. Now all God's people can see God in Jesus Christ and sit down to eat and drink in peace with their covenant Lord. The Lord's Supper now marks the day when the Covenant of Grace made with Abraham is finally fulfilled. The Mosaic structure of the covenant is gone, the "new covenant" in Christ has come. And now the meal which signs and seals the Covenant of Grace can be enjoyed repeatedly and everywhere throughout the Lord's whole kingdom.

In summary, the role of the Lord's Supper in the covenant community is the same as that of the mystical meal on the mountain described in Exodus 24. It signs and seals the new expression in Christ of the Covenant of Grace which replaces the Mosaic expression of the Covenant of Grace which had been marked by the sacrificial system of the Old Testament.

It has to be admitted that this discussion of the role of the Lord's Supper in the covenant does not answer specifically the question of whether or not children should participate in the Lord's Supper. It does, however, contribute two significant dimensions to the discussion.

First, it makes clear that direct biblical teaching indicates that the Lord's Supper is first of all the celebration of covenant peace. Therefore the Old Testament ceremonies which contribute most to our understanding of the Lord's Supper will be the covenant-sealing ceremonies such as fellowship offerings. It is a grave mistake to rest our understanding of the Lord's Supper primarily on any other ceremony of the Old Testament. To do so would be to substitute indirect inferences from theological positions for direct biblical teaching.

But maybe more important, this discussion of Exodus 24 and Hebrews 8-10 has made clear that in the covenant life of Old Testament Israel there really was no direct analogy to the Lord's Supper. For the covenant-sealing meal of Exodus 24 was never repeated during the Mosaic covenant simply because the perfect blood which would make it possible had not yet been shed.

Thus, any simplistic notion that somehow the Lord's Supper is just a new version of the Passover or any other Old Testament observance really ignores the weight of Jesus' own testimony when he instituted the Lord's Supper. The Lord's Supper is a new meal, shadowed faintly in the old covenant only in Exodus 24. Therefore the Lord's Supper must be governed by terms appropriate to the "new covenant in Christ's blood," or as Hebrews puts it, not by the blood of bulls and goats which can never take away sin" (Heb. 10:4).

D. The Relationship of the Lord's Supper to the Passover

Reformed Christians sometimes think that the regulations for the Passover should determine the way we should observe the Lord's Supper. The Bible, however, provides no support for that position.

One difficulty in this entire discussion stems from Reformed catechetical training which often has properly emphasized certain continuities between the Old Testament and New Testament. It can be appreciated that many Reformed youth learn that the Lord's Supper fulfills the Passover. The problem is that too many Reformed Christians have never explored exactly what the Bible itself really says about how the Lord's Supper fulfills the Passover. What is often overlooked is that it is the Lord Jesus Christ who fulfills the Passover along with all the Old Testament types and ceremonies, and that the Lord's Supper remembers Christ.

As a result of this difficulty, much of what the majority report says regarding the Passover is helpful in reminding the church of the covenantal solidarity which was fostered in ancient Israel by their joyful participation in the feast. God's people remembered their redemption from the slavery of Egypt and from death at the hands of Pharaoh's army. The Passover provided the occasion to teach young children who asked what all this meant to God's people. In the same way, God's people today can remember their redemption from the slavery of sin and death through their observance of the Lord's Supper. As every parent and pastor knows, each communion service also provides an occasion to teach young children who ask what all this means to God's people today.

Unfortunately, for all its fine and interesting contributions to the discussion, the majority report's treatment of the Passover suffers from the same fault as many other Reformed discussions of the issue. It simply never really explores exactly what the Bible itself explicitly says about the manner in which the Lord's Supper fulfills the Passover. The majority report has not done justice to the
discontinuities between Old Testament practice and New Testament fulfillment.

1. Not the Only Antecedent

Extreme care must be taken in calling any Old Testament observance a "sacrament." The Reformed confessions point out that "sacraments" are observances which Christ himself established to proclaim his decisive atonement and salvation. Therefore, any Old Testament observance is a "sacrament" only to the extent that it pointed God's people forward to the sacrifice. Perhaps it is best to refer to such Old Testament practices as having sacramental significance.

Obviously the Passover primarily looked back to the deliverance from Egypt and only by analogy did it anticipate the final salvation in Jesus Christ. It ought not to be forgotten that the Passover was not primarily a feast in which God's people looked forward to the coming Messiah. The Passover was a feast where Israel looked back to the past salvation already granted to their nation.

It has to be remembered that atonement was not really a central part of the Passover feast. Simply shedding blood in the Passover does not make it an "atonement" ceremony. The lamb's blood was shed in Egypt to substitute for the life of the family, specifically the oldest child. Atonement (the removal of sin) was not the primary significance. There are many Old Testament sacrifices which signify just that -- but not the Passover! Even though blood is shed during the ritual, the Bible never calls the Passover an atonement. In today's discussions, extreme care ought to be used before calling the Passover a sacrament, let alone the only Old Testament sacrament.

If, however, the Passover is to be regarded as a sacrament, it is only one of many Old Testament "sacraments" which are fulfilled by the Lord. For instance, both Calvin and Augustine rely on I Corinthians 10 and following to justify calling the eating of manna and drinking of water from the rock a sacramental eating. Indeed, the apostle Paul does specifically identify the eating of manna and the drinking of water from the rock as participation in Christ, something he never does regarding the Passover.

In short, there may be some justification in considering the Passover to be a sacramental antecedent of the Lord's Supper, even though the Bible never specifically does so. Yet it must be done only in a very limited way and with full realization that other Old Testament events have an even stronger claim to the title of "sacrament."

2. Old Testament Observances Do Not Determine New Testament Practice

Two mistakes commonly are made by those who argue that the nature of Passover observances should govern the nature of the Lord's Supper celebration.

First, there is a basic error in biblical interpretation. Those who try to determine Lord's Supper practice by observing Passover practice miss the fundamental interpretive principle that God's relationship with his people develops throughout history. To be sure, there is a fundamental covenant of grace made with Abraham which governs all of God's dealings with his people throughout history. Yet the specific historical form which his covenant takes is shaped by the specific moment in history in which God's people are living.

As a result, God established the Mosaic covenant when the people of Israel left Egypt. That covenant, regulated by the Mosaic law, expressed the terms of the Abrahamic covenant -- the Covenant of Grace -- during a specific time in history. However, when Jesus Christ came, he established a "new" (Heb. 12:24) and "better" (Heb. 7:22) covenant which replaces the Mosaic covenant made at Sinai. "For the law came through Moses, grace and truth through Jesus Christ" (John 1:17). Reformed Christians are quick to add that the new covenant in Jesus Christ fulfilled the Abrahamic covenant of grace. But in doing so, that new covenant in Christ replaced the specific historical form of that covenant as given through Moses. That is why Reformed Christians no longer keep the ceremonial laws established to mark the Mosaic covenant, but they do insist that the principles of those laws still hold for New Testament believers today.

It is precisely the new covenant in Jesus Christ which the Bible says is observed in the Lord's Supper. In fact, it was Jesus himself who declared that the Lord's Supper is the mark of the "new covenant in my blood" (Luke 22:20). As a result, the believers of the new covenant must govern their observance of the Supper by the New Testament teaching regarding the nature of the Lord's Supper as a newly established mark of the new covenant. Certainly the Passover, along with all of the Old Testament feasts, can illumine the meaning of the Lord's Supper; however, the Passover cannot determine its practice.

A second problem with trying to ground New Testament sacramental practice in the style of Old Testament observances is that it simply does not work.

First of all, since the Lord's Supper replaces so many Old Testament observances, it is impossible to follow all their regulations in contemporary practice. For instance, as already mentioned, the Lord's Supper fulfills the manna eating and rock-water drinking in the wilderness (cf. I Cor. 10). But even unbelievers and animals were nourished by eating manna and drinking water from the rock. Yet surely they would not be invited to the Lord's Supper today!

Similarly the Lord fulfills the sacrifice which the high priest offered once a year on the day of atonement (cf. Heb. 7:26 ff.; 8:1 ff.; 9:6-7; 9:11-14; 10:19 ff.). Yet the meat of those animals was discarded and burned (Lev. 16:27). But the sacrificial food of the Lord's Supper cannot both be eaten (in line with the Passover) and destroyed (in line with the day of atonement). Contemporary
practices will have to be governed by the nature of the contemporary sacrament and its sacrifice (i.e., Christ s), not by the practices of the older covenant antecedents.

Besides, trying to argue current sacramental practice from Old Testament practice simply proves too much. It will not work to argue that the Old Testament regulations need to be followed unless explicitly contradicted by New Testament teaching.

If children are to participate in the Lord's Supper simply because they participated in the Passover, then the church will also have to baptize only male infants since they were the participants in the Old Testament rite of circumcision, and the New Testament never specifically sets those regulations aside. Moreover, the Lord's Supper now will have to be celebrated only once a year at a central location since the New Testament never specifically supercedes that regulation either.

In the end, then, although it sounds very Reformed to try and ground New Testament practice in Old Testament observances, extreme care has to be taken when attempting to follow that principle. It is neither hermeneutically sound nor exegetically possible to determine the answer to problems of New Testament practice solely on the basis of Old Testament regulations.

3. The Meal of the New Covenant Overshadows Its Antecedens

The primary question should be, What is the nature of the Lord's Supper as a meal of the new covenant, and how does that relate to the Passover as a meal of the old covenant? It simply will not do to start with the Passover and try to fit the Supper into its pattern. When the New Testament teaching is examined for the nature of the Lord's Supper, the most prominent theme is that of sacrifice and atonement. When Jesus is called "the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world," the obvious reference is not to the Passover lamb but to the guilt-offering lamb which is led to the slaughter (Isa. 53:7-12). Isaiah said that the Righteous One will justify many and bear the sins of many; John the Baptizer said that the Lamb of God will take away the sin of the world (John 1:29). Only priests could eat the guilt offering and only in a holy place (Lev. 7:6-7).

The requirement for an unblemished lamb was a requirement for all the sacrificial lambs (cf. Lev. 22:24-25), not just for the Passover lamb. Moreover, the observation that Jesus' bones were not broken is a direct quotation from Psalm 34:20 regarding the Lord's protection of his righteous servant, not merely an allusion to the slaughter of the Passover lamb.

In short, the New Testament scarcely ever relates Jesus' death to the Passover observation but does repeatedly tie it to the Old Testament sin and guilt offerings. In fact, outside the gospels, the Passover is only mentioned three times, and never in relationship to the Lord's Supper. For instance, the apostle Paul never mentions the Passover while giving instruction regarding observance of the Lord's Supper. Indeed, his only reference to Christ as the Passover (lamb) has nothing to do with the Lord's Supper (I Cor. 5:7). This text occurs in a passage in which Paul is addressing issues of the Christian life and not the question of participation in the Christian Eucharist. Paul tells the church to get rid of sin, just as one cleansed the home of leaven prior to Passover. The church is to live by the new rule of God's Spirit rather than the old way of sin.

It ought not to be forgotten that when the apostle Paul does refer to an Old Testament "communion" with God he refers, not to the Passover, but to the altar sacrifices which commemorated God s forgiveness and blessing (I Cor.:10:14-22). In other words, in the apostle Paul's instruction, our eating and drinking Christ is pointedly not tied to the Passover meal but to the other sacrifices of the Old Testament fulfilled in Christ.

Even more significant is the fact that the writer to the Hebrews never once compares Jesus to the Passover lamb. The book of Hebrews contains a sustained argument for the superiority of the work of Jesus Christ over the various persons, types, and ceremonies of the Old Testament. In fact, the Passover is the central core to understanding the sacrifice of Jesus, It seem inexplicable that the writer of Hebrews would not have considered that possibility.

By contrast, Hebrews 8-10 clearly teaches that the central meaning of Christ's death is foreshadowed first of all by the sacrifice of the high priest who once a year brought the atonement offering into the Most Holy Place where he sprinkled blood on the mercy seat to atone for the sins of the people of God. The significance, then, of Jesus' sacrifice is that he, unlike the high priests of the old covenant, offered his own blood as an atonement sacrifice for the sins of his people.

So then, Jesus' sacrifice fulfills and completes all the Old Testament sacrifices and celebrations, including the Passover. Therefore, the Passover cannot be singled out as determinative of the nature and observance of the Lord's Supper. The New Testament itself passes over the Passover in its discussion of Christ's death and identifies the atonement and guilt offering systems of the Old Testament as the central meaning of Christ's sacrifice.

That fact ought not to be surprising. Recall what was said earlier about the historical development of God's covenant relationship with his people. The guilt and atonement offerings of the Mosaic covenant illumined the heart of the Abrahamic Covenant of Grace in a way that the Passover never really did. The guilt and atonement offerings pointed the way to the type of salvation that would be necessary for complete redemption of God's people. The Passover, on the other hand, celebrated a specific historical act of God in bringing his people toward that day of complete redemption.

Thus when Jesus Christ offers the complete redemption for his people, it is those sacrifices which are fulfilled and observed by the new sacrament of his death. At the same time, the specific celebration of the historical event of deliverance from Egypt (as marked by the Passover) is more than fulfilled in Christ. In reality it is actually superceded and overshadowed by the new celebration of the historical event of Christ's deliverance from sin and death (as marked by the Lord's Supper).

The Lord's Supper is the covenant meal designed to mark the new historical expression of the Covenant of Grace, now brought in Jesus Christ. As such it replaces the mystical covenant-sealing meal of Moses and the seventy elders which initiated the Sinaitic covenant in Exodus 24. Therefore, the revelation of the new historical expression of the covenant must be considered regulative of that new covenant meal. The New Testament must be permitted to reveal the standards for participation in that new covenant meal which are appropriate to it, even if those standards are different from those for old covenant meals. We must always remember that when the sovereign Lord renews a covenant, he has the right to change, however slightly, the terms of that covenant observance to meet the new historical situation. His covenant subjects do not honor him by insisting on clinging to the old terms of the old covenant.

Was the old catechetical instruction wrong, then, when it taught that the Passover was the Old Testament background to the Lord's Supper? In one sense, no. The Lord's Supper does continue and fulfill the celebration of deliverance marked in times past by the Passover.

At the same time, the questions of the present cannot be answered by assuming that the Lord's Supper is simply an updated Passover celebration. Such assumptions just are not true to the New Testament teaching regarding the Lord's Supper. The Lord's Supper is an observance of Christ's blood" of the new covenant" and must be regulated accordingly.

The description of the Passover found in the majority report contains a great deal of interesting detail regarding the Passover which can enrich the understanding of the Lord's Supper. Unfortunately, its value in teaching us very much about how to celebrate the Lord's Supper is extremely limited. For such guidance we will have to rely on the institution and instruction regarding the new meal of the new covenant.

E. A Study of Such Scripture Passages as I Corinthians 10 and 11

While the Synod of 1986 suggested many Scripture passages which might illumine the issue of children's participation in the Lord's Supper, our committee has remained convinced that the crucial passages remain I Corinthians 10 and 11. While appreciating much of what the majority report presents in discussing these passages, nevertheless we believe it is necessary to present a careful examination of this portion of Scripture.

First Corinthians 11:17-34 occurs in a section of Paul's first letter to the Corinthian church in which Paul is addressing proper conduct in the public worship gatherings of the church. Earlier, in chapter 9, Paul had spoken of his apostolic methods in reaching all peoples for the gospel of Christ Jesus. He subjects himself to the rigorous discipline of the Christian faith so that he might not be "disqualified for the prize," which is eternal life (I Cor. 9:27).

This provides a connection into chapter 10 in which Paul gives warning to the New Testament church against any kind of presumption of blessing while tolerating a sinful way of life. The Old Testament people of God received supernatural, sacramental gifts, yet "God was not pleased with most of them; their bodies were scattered over the desert" (I Cor. 10:5). Why was this the case? Although Israel was baptized into Moses, and the Exodus event had led to faith (Ex. 14:31), yet Israel failed to obey the Lord in thankfulness and humility. Participation in the sacramental meals is not sufficient for the receiving of God's gracious covenantal blessings.

It should be noted that all Israel was able to benefit from this spiritual food and drink. Even foreigners among them could eat and drink with them. Animals, too, would have had to drink this water since, in the nature of the case, there would have been no other source of nourishment. Thus the sacramental participation being described in I Corinthians 10:1 ff. would have been the most inclusive of all the sacramental nourishments described in the Old Testament. Yet if this passage be used to determine who are the participants of' the Supper of the New Testament, then too much has been proven. For example, when Paul uses the word all in I Corinthians 10:l ff., it would be going beyond his point to assume that Corinthians Christian infants were, or even should be, receiving the communion elements.

The sins described in this passage serve the church as an example so that we might not sin against the covenant-keeping God. Paul here makes specific application to the practice of eating food that had been offered to idols, which are demons (I Cor. 10:14-22). At this point Paul brings in the Lord's Supper. Communion is at least a fellowship with the body and blood of the Lord. This, therefore, takes away any permission to eat at demon's altars. Paul then makes reference to the altars of Israel as examples of the fellowship that Israel had with God. At no point in I Corinthians does Paul introduce the Passover as the paradigm for the Lord's Supper. If the wilderness eating (which had the widest participation) could be sacramental and open to censure, how much more is this true in regard to the eating and drinking of the body and blood of Christ, which is to be received in faith (cf. John 6:35 ff.).

We should recall that what Paul teaches here is the 'catholic practice of the church (I Cor. 11:16). What he says then applies to the way the congregations of Corinth and those of Jerusalem, for example, would approach the table of the Lord. Even if some congregations did observe some type of agape meal (which may have arisen out of a Passover observance), it is clear that such meals do not belong to the essence of a communion service. Eating and drinking can be done at home (I Cor. 11:22).

It is for these reasons that the virtual equivalence which is sometimes drawn between the Passover and the Lord's Supper cannot be maintained. The New Testament almost never draws a direct connection between the two. While there is the commonly held belief that the Passover is the "Old Testament sacramental meal," it must be recognized that the New Testament teaches that the Passover is only one of several antecedents from the Old Testament situation. Due to the lack of much antitypical connection being made in the New Testament, the Passover is not even the most prominent of the typical antecedents to the Lord's Supper. As was demonstrated in Section II, D of this report the guilt offering and the sacrifice of atonement figure just as prominently, If not more so, in the New Testament's teaching of the Lord's sacrifice for his people. The Lord's Supper remembers him. Therefore, the argument which seeks to answer the question of who should participate in Communion by appealing to the Passover as the only Old Testament meal cannot be exegetically sustained. The majority report does not explore these other dimensions concernig, for example, the guilt offering and the yearly atonement sacrifice.

Our report does not deny that the Lord's Supper was instituted in some type of paschal setting, but it cannot be established that the Lord's Supper is now a Christianized Passover. The starting point for the Lord's Supper is the "night of betrayal," leading to Christ's sacrifice on the cross (I Cor. 11:23). The starting point isthus not the Passover.

What Jesus did was to interpret, not the distinctive Passover elements, but food of ordinary meals, although the food and drink which he used in the Last Supper were probably part of some kind of paschal meal. He gives such food and drink. a new haggadic significance: "This is my body. . . . This cup is the covenant m my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me" (I Cor. 11:24-25). What does Paul mean by "remembrance"? The idea of "remembrance" is more than not forgetting Jesus, and it is broader than the Passover.(Ex. 12:14). It is a proclamation of the death of Jesus until he returns again as living Lord to raise up those who are his by a true faith (I Cor. 11:24-26; cf. John 6:35-40, 51, 53-58).

Although Jesus Christ's death and resurrection have ended all the sacrifices of. the Old Testament administration, the remembrance element is still maintained in the new covenant situation. At the Lord's Supper the congregation consciously recalls the sin which bars fellowship with God, but also how God in Jesus Christ has reestablished fellowship with himself. Thus the accent is clearly on the pure grace of God being brought near to the members of the covenant community. Nothing that the communicants have done merits the cleansing and renewal that belong to the faithful members of God's covenant. The faith with which they approach the table is a gift of grace in Jesus Christ, promised in his Word and confirmed at every Christian baptism (Eph. 2:8-10; cf. Acts 2:38; 22:16; Titus 3:5). This the believers also remember at the Lord's table.

When the believers recall their sins and God's destruction of the same, the body and blood of Christ are received with great blessing. One then has commumion with Christ through the Spirit who effects the virtue of his body and blood (I.Cor. 10:16-17). Remembrance is more than "jogging the memory"; it is an active proclamation of the perfect and only atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ, who has in pure grace and mercy saved his people. Thus one does not approach the anamnesis (remembrance) lightly. Approaching the table of the Lord involves more than being able to discern that there is a difference between Communion and an ordinary meal. One must come in faith, humbled by the grace which is given by a faithful God.

What is thus clearly taught is that one must judge oneself properly in receiving the bread and cup so that the Lord would not enter into a disciplining judgment against him. This is what Paul says explicitly in I Corinthians 11:31, "But if we judged ourselves, we would not come under judgment." At this point Paul is not referring to the condemnation of the last day, although such cannot be excluded entirely. God's judgment is a discipline so that the ones being so disciplined may repent and amend their life in order to escape the condemnation of the world, which Paul mentions in I Corinthians 11:32.

Paul spells out in I Corinthians 11:27 ff. the implications of what the remembrance and proclamation mean. Whoever would be a communicant in an unworthy way, becomes guilty of sins against the body and blood of the Lord. He or she may receive the elements, but if there be no discerning, no remembering of Christ, and no proclaiming of his death in thankfulness, then the communicant is guilty of profanation, because in the Christ's Supper, his real and proper body and blood are offered to each one who comes forward to commune with him.

The way to avoid such profanity and guilt is for a person to examine himself, so that his heart and life are in accordance with the Word of God. In Corinth, for example, that meant that there be no factions at the congregation's meals, and that one duly acknowledge the saving significance of Jesus Christ's person and work. Communion observance has then both an ecclesiological focus and a soteriological focus. The elements of cup and bread point to both. The cup and bread are real fellowship or participation in Christ's blood and body. But many drink and eat of this one cup and one bread. The unity of the congregation is thus symbolized (I Cor. 10:14-17). In the Lord's Supper the believer is making a confession about the church of which he or she is a living member, as well as making a confession that the whole of salvation is by grace alone in Jesus Christ.

When believers receive the bread and cup, they must recognize or discern themselves in a proper Christian relationship to the Lord and to the church. Otherwise, there is an eating and drinking of the Lord's disciplining judgment. Of course, it must always be remembered that the Lord instituted the feast out of grace for our comfort and assurance, not for our judgment. Yet the Covenant of Grace is enjoyed only in the way of faith, demonstrated in faithfulness. If that be missing, the Lord makes known his discipline. In Corinth such discipline was felt in the form of weakness, sickness, and even death. The covenant Lord deals covenantal judgment when his people do not approach his table with discernment that leads to thanks. The question must be asked: if children were communing in Corinth, how can one exegetically make Paul's strong command (the verb in verse 28 is in the imperative mood) not apply to a major portion of the congregation, namely, the infants and young children? To say that such applies only to those able or capable of such a response, appears too easy a conclusion.

The verb used in I Corinthians 11:28 has the meaning of "to test" and "to try." Being in the imperative mood gives the apostolic injunction seriousness since Christ and his Supper cannot be approached in a thoughtless, casual, or carelessly. Therefore, participation in the Lord's Supper includes, among several things, at least the dimension of the discipling of oneself. First Corinthians 11:28 says that in this way one should partake of the bread and drink of the cup. Paul's call for self-examination is not to be understood as a morbid or individualistic introspection, but a personal testing within the context of the one body of Christ. One church partakes of one bread and one cup. Paul even says that we are to judge ourselves (1 Cor. 11:31-32). Thus there is warrant for the elders to "guard" the table from unbelievers and the ungodly. By commanding self-examination Paul is not giving license to a free-for-all participation. The sacrament of the table is a means of grace to confirm the faith of believers who
strive to lead godly lives (Lord's Day 25 & 30). The necessity and urgency of discernment, remembrance, and proclamation in the Lord's Supper could not be stated more emphatically by the apostle Paul.

Therefore, the implications of Paul's words here are for all the members of the covenant community to be taught by word and example how to be personally discerning of Christ's work for the life of his people and for the church's life together and in the world. Since salvation is by grace alone, in Christ alone, through faith alone, the response of the true Christian is thanksgiving. Truly the Lord's Supper is a Eucharist of praise, not a resacrifice of Jesus (as the Passover was resacrifice of the typical lamb). Because of the covenantal relationship of grace, it is imperative that the youngest members of the church be given such instruction in word and practice so that they, being members of Christ, can come to his table with a willing heart, obedient life, and discerning mind. When covenant children come in such a fashion, they commune with Christ and his church with great blessing.

To summarize I Corinthians 11:17-34, the train of thought can be understood in the following way:

vv. 17-22 Paul addresses the sinful, factious situation in the Corinthian church. Note the use of "you."
v v. 23-26 Paul recalls the authoritative tradition regarding the Lord's will when the Supper is observed.
vv.27-29 Paul draws out a general principle: it is necessary in the Supper for communicants to come with discernment, remembrance, and a proclamation of the Lord.
vv. 30-32 Paul shows how the Corinthian failure in regard to the general principle is why they have received judgment.
vv. 33-34 Paul tells the church what to do for the future so that it will no longer experience God's judgment.

All that has been said about the way that the believer comes to the table of the Lord is not to discourage anyone from approaching the Lord's Supper. Scripture spells out quite clearly how one is to come. Such apostolic revelation is intended to guide all members of God's covenant to his gracious union and communion with him at the feast which he has provided and at which he is host. The Bible does not intend to keep members of the covenant away; rather it prescribes how anyone is to come to the feast. It is by "an informed confession," a confession that discerns, remembers, and proclaims the Lord Jesus Christ, his person and work.

That is why the 1986 report said that whenever a child is baptized, another place is set at the Lord's table. Through teaching and example the church is preparing every member of the covenant to participate at Communion with meaning. At baptism union with Christ is signified; at the Lord's Supper communion with Christ is enjoyed by grace through faith.

Since the clear accent in the sacraments is one of grace within God's covenant, the confession of true faith is integral to the joy and thanks that belong to all believers. God's people have been rescued from sin, from death, and from the tyranny of the devil. In the Lord's Supper the church celebrates the truth that the Lamb of God, who died for elect sinners, is raised from the dead! His resurrection has raised his people from the dead. The proper biblical response is to give thanks by discerning, by remembering, and by proclaiming his life-giving mysteries at his table, in the hope of his return and of our resurrection.

F. The Relationship of the Lord's Supper to Public Profession of Faith

In the 1986 report reference was made to the Reformed expectation that those who come to the table make an "informed profession of faith." Although the term "informed profession" is a traditional one in Reformed theology, we soon discovered that its use had led to serious misunderstandings of our report. Apparently many people read our report as asking for a highly intellectual, cognitively oriented, doctrinally focused profession of faith. That, however, is far from the meaning of the term "informed profession," and certainly not the intention of our committee. Perhaps a review of the history of the practice of public profession of faith will be helpful.

Prior to the Reformation the only profession of faith required was assent to the catholic faith as taught and defined by hierarchy of the church. Communicants were not asked whether they themselves assented to the faith, they merely had to assent to the right of the church hierarchy to define that faith. If asked, "What do you believe?" a communicant only had to respond, "I believe whatever the church believes." They only had to make an "implicit profession" of faith.

The reformers, however, rightly recovered the teaching of Romans 10:9 that what a person confesses with the mouth must also be believed in the heart. And so the concept of an "informed profession" developed. All that was meant by that term is that the person making the profession personally believed the faith being professed. An "informed profession," then, simply indicates that the profession is an expression of personal conviction and not just an expression of loyalty to the church organization.

And requiring that "informed profession" has been the consistent requirement of the Reformed churches since the sixteenth century. John Calvin thought that an examination in the Lord's Prayer, the Ten Commandments, and the articles of the Christian faith ought to be the basis for admission to the Lord's table. He proposed that somewhere around age ten a person should be able to undergo such an examination, although in actual practice the Genevan churches apparently admitted children to the Lord's table about age fourteen.

Following Calvin the Scottish Reformation churches began to require an examination in those same three areas. The examination generally was undertaken by those near the age of twelve and was conducted by the elders of the church. Meanwhile on the continent the age of thirteen or fourteen appeared to be a common time for examination. Once again, however, the Lord's Prayer, the Ten Commandments, and the articles of the Christian faith were the focus of the examination. In fact, that is how the Heidelberg Catechism came to be used as the basis for the examination.

It is extremely unfortunate that so many people seem to consider an examination of the Heidelberg Catechism as somehow requiring a highly intellectual comprehension of systematic theology. It seems to be forgotten that the Heidelberg Catechism was written to train uneducated German peasants in the evangelical faith. Furthermore, the Heidelberg Catechism actually is organized as nothing more than an explanation of exactly those same three items which almost all the Reformation churches required for admission to the table namely, the Apostles Creed, the Ten Commandments, and the Lord's Prayer
as well as the sacraments.

In the Dutch Reformation churches it seems that in the very early days the examination of the communicant took place in the presence of the entire congregation. Early on, however, the consistory took over the responsibility making the examination more private with only a public declaration of faith taking place before the entire congregation.

However, even that declaration of faith remained rooted in the Reformation principles of an "informed profession." The familiar questions embodied in this century by an official form of the Christian Reformed Church were taken directly from sixteenth-century practice. First, the professor was asked whether he or she actually believed that the way of salvation was found entirely
in the Scripture (and, by implication, not in the church hierarchy). Second, the confessor was asked for a declaration of personal faith (again, by implication not just allegiance to a church body). And finally, the professor was asked for a declaration that his or her faith was a living faith of obedience (again, by implication, not a reliance on the church institution as the guardian of faith).

Curiously enough, throughout this history, the age question apparently was never debated hotly. Calvin suggested age ten, but then it should not be forgotten that in those days youth were also studying Plato and Aristotle at age twelve. In the post-Reformation churches the age seemed to settle at what now would be called early adolescence, perhaps age twelve-fourteen, although at that time most formal education had been concluded by that age.

The first great change in the age practice seems to have come around the beginning of the twentieth century under the influence of Abraham Kuyper and his stress on covenant theology. Prior to Kuyper there had been considerable emphasis on the time of profession of faith as a time of becommg a full Christian, what some would have called a time of conversion. Kuyper, however, stressed that since all covenant youth were already full Christians the only significance of a profession of faith was their signaling a willingness to accept adult responsibilities within the covenant community. Kuyper, then, argued against seeing profession of faith as "an heroic act" but wanted it to be seen as the time when faithful covenant youth accept their responsibilities as mature
covenant adults. As a result, among many of the Dutch Reformed family of churches profession of faith began to be practiced only at the end of the teenage years or even later. And so it is only in the twentieth century that profession of faith came to be colored with a more heavy intellectual tinge

In its official pronouncements, at least, the Christian Reformed Church has resisted this shift toward intellectualizing profession of faith. When accused of this type of intellectualization by the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, the Christian Reformed Synod of 1959 replied that" allowance must be made for the diverse levels of understanding of the implications of a truly Christian confession on the part of those who may be deemed eligible, in accordance with Christ's institution, for communicant membership. . . . Each individual must be examined and dealt with specifically" (Acts of Synod 1959, p. 22).

Particularly noteworthy is the insistence of Synod 1959 that profession of faith is not an additional layer of Reformed intellectual understanding added to a more basic Christian confession. After all, no "disjunction may properly be made between a Christian confession and a Reformed confession" (Acts of Synod 1959, p. 22). Furthermore, the synod declared that the only legitimate
standard for profession of faith were the same standards which Christ himself instituted for coming to his table, standards which obviously had to be applied individually.

Unfortunately, in the Kuyperian shift toward emphasizing the intellectual content of profession, many in the church seem to have forgotten what the Synod of 1959 emphasized, that at its heart profession of faith is really admission to the Lord's table. It needs to be remembered that the Church Order of the Christian Reformed Church never specifies a rite called "public profession of
faith." Rather, the Church Order reminds the churches that admission to the Lord's table must include a public profession of faith (Church Order Art. 59). The emphasis of the article is to supervise the Lord's table. Profession of faith has no standing in the Church Order apart from that purpose.

Indeed, admission to the Lord's table seems to be the only biblical ground which the church can use to demand a public profession of faith of its members. The apostle Paul used his authority in the Corinthian church to guard the table and demanded that the church do so too-"But if we [plural] judged ourselves we would not come under judgment" (I Cor. 11:31).

However, in exercising that supervision, the elders can use only the standard which the Bible itself gives for guarding the table. Gratefully that standard is also explicit in I Corinthians 11, namely faith to discern, remember, and proclaim the body of Christ while partaking.

But how can the elders evaluate the expression of faith on the part of those who seek admission to the table? Again the elders only have the right to search for those evidences of faith which the Bible itself reveals as the signs of the presence of faith. And there the Bible is specific: "If you confess with your I mouth. . . Jesus is Lord" (Rom. 10:9); "No one can say, 'Jesus is Lord' except by the Spirit" (I Cor. 12:3). The only standard which the Bible authorizes in supervising the Lord's Supper is a public expression of faith and, of course, a life consistent with that profession.

To summarize, the connection between a public profession of faith and admission to the Lord's table is far more intimate than generally recognized. Indeed, the only legitimate warrant the church has for requiring a public profession of faith is its duty to supervise the Lord's table. If profession of faith is separated from admission to the table, the church has no authority to require
a public profession. If, on the other hand, the church is to supervise the Lord's table, then on biblical mandate it must require such a public profession.

But does that mean the Lord's Supper has no role to play in nurtunng the developing faith of those covenant youth who do not yet exhibit faith which can meaningfully participate in the Lord's Supper? Hardly! Recall the theme of the 1986 report that at baptism another place is set at the Lord s table and that all the church's effort should be dedicated to leading covenant youth to take their place at that table as soon as possible. Recall also the recommendation of the 1986 report that synod advise the churches never to exclude covenant youth from attendance at the observances of the Lord's Supper. The 1986 report also
asked that the educational material of the church contain repeated references to the calling of baptized youth to move along their journey of faith toward the table of the Lord.

Certainly the church's experience has proven this biblical insight. The churches know that youth need to be challenged to claim the covenant community's obligations as their own. The church properly fears that if admission to the Lord's table is practiced apart from profession of faith that challenge to faithful living may be lost.

Indeed, the Lord's table should be regarded as a beacon of God's grace which is constantly calling covenant youth to search their lives for the presence of the faith which will enable them to partake with meaning and joy. In that way their observing of the covenant meal nourishes even nonpartaking covenant youth by its repeated call to profess the faith which will enable them to take their place at the table of their Lord.

llI. PASTORAL CONSIDERATIONS AND GUIDELINES

A. Pastoral Considerations

After all the study and discussion of the past few years, it is finally time for synod to adopt pastoral guidelines for the welfare of the churches. The question before synod now is this, what are the conditions under which covenant youth are to be admitted to the Lord's table? Specifically, what statements can synod adopt which will assist the elders of the churches in bringing the baptized youth of the congregation to their place at the table of the Lord?

In many respects we are sympathetic with certain of the recommendations as presented in the majority report. We do wonder, however, whether Recommendations 1 and 2 are sufficiently precise to be helpful for the elders of the churches, especially since half of the signers of the majority report have indicated vigorous objection to the claim that both of these recommendations flow from their report.

We are more concerned, however, that Recommendations 3 and 4 of the majority report, which separate admission to the table from profession of faith, are both premature and unwise.

First, they are premature because the majority itself indicates that the rationale for such changes needs to be studied (Recommendation 5). If the majority admits that it has not provided a biblical rationale for these changes, then it seems premature to recommend the changes suggested in Recommendations 3 and 4.

Furthermore, we believe that Recommendations 3 and 4 are also unwise because they set up a separate category for admitting church members to the Lord's Supper, a category which apparently cannot be used for admitting others. As the Christian Reformed Church becomes more and more involved in evangelistic outreach, situations such as the following will likely present difficult problems for elders attempting to implement the majority's recommendations.

- A single parent joins the church. His former spouse, who is not a Christian, has custody of the children. Occasionally, the children visit their father, sometimes staying over Sunday. Do these baptized children, as a matter of course, partake of Communion with their father?
- The child of a believing family asks her neighborhood friend, the daughter of a family who does not attend church, to come along to Sunday worship. The Lord's Supper is served. The child of the believing family, who has regularly partaken with her family for several years, comes to the table. Will the nonbaptized child who is visiting partake also? If not, will the believing parents explain why she cannot partake?
- That same visiting child begins to like her friend's church. She attends Sunday school and worship every week she is able to. One day she says she wants to partake of Communion with her friend, even though her parents show no signs of interest in the Christian faith. Should a consistory consider baptizing such a child, thereby allowing her to partake of Communion with her friend? If that child is sixteen, presumably no problem exists. But what if that child is seven years old? Or four?
- A teenage couple who have never publicly professed their faith present their child for baptism. Will the consistory tell these nonprofessing parents that they may not have their child baptized even though they may continue to come to the Lord's Supper? Or will the consistory now bar them from the Lord's Supper?
- If the consistory decides to bar that teenage couple from the Lord's Supper as well as from having their child baptized, would the consistory also be willing to bar (literally "excommunicated") all teenage members of similar age who also have not yet professed their faith publicly?

The difficult question in the first three situations is the same: at what age would a child be allowed to be baptized and/or commune apart from parental faithfulness? The difficult question in the second two situations is a related one: at what age will the exemption expire which allows covenant children to participate in the Lord's Supper without a public expression of faith? And
because every congregation has some (members or nonmembers) who, either by their design or neglect, fail to hold to their covenant promises, those difficult questions of age will have to be addressed in every consistory, not just in those congregations where community evangelism plays a significant role in the church program.

We do not raise these issues to snipe at the majority report. We raise them because we are convinced that they illustrate the weakness of separating profession of faith from admission to the Lord's Supper and thus exempting children of church members from standards for admission to the Lord's table which would continue to be applied to all other believers.

As the preceding considerations make clear, no set of guidelines can be formulated which make the elders' work simple when it comes to admitting covenant youth to the Lord's table. In the final analysis, the decision as to when a covenant youth can be admitted to the Lord's table depends on the judgment of the elders in the individual situation. We are happy that the majority recommendations are in agreement on that score.

At the same time, we believe that the elders have a right to expect that synod will formulate clear biblical guidelines. Guidelines which deal with youth in the abstract or which become confusing when applied will be of only limited assistance to elders who have to help nurture the faith of specific children in their own congregations.

Accordingly we are recommending only that synod adopt four brief pastoral guidelines to serve the churches. We believe that these affirmations are sufficiently clear and concise as to require biblical practice by the churches. At the same time they are sufficiently broad so as to avoid any sense of synodical compulsion over the wisdom of local consistories.

It is our belief that with these guidelines the elders of the churches will be able to carry out their responsibilities in the confidence that their decisions meet the guidance of Christ himself, both for his glory and the blessing of his Covenant children.

B. Pastoral Guidelines

We know that concern for the nurture of covenant youth has led many to expect that this study should recommend radical changes in the church's practice. In that respect our proposals, although appearing radical to some, may well disappoint those who believe that the crisis among covenant youth in certain congregations demands truly historic changes in church practice.

We would raise three cautions, First, we need to remember that the only changes which are sure to bring covenant youth all the blessings of the Lord's covenant are changes which are supported by Scripture. The only covenant nurture which is sure to be a blessing is the covenant nurture outlined in the book of the covenant, God's Word. We believe this report has demonstrated that our proposed guidelines summarize such biblical teaching.

Second, we should never assume that there is no biblical support for a particular church practice simply because the church has not thoroughly articulated such support. It may be that the church has not offered extensive arguments for its practice because the Bible's teaching had been assumed to be clear on the issue. Perhaps biblical support for the practice simply needs to be searched out and expressed. We believe that this report together with the 1986 report offers a good beginning in providing biblical grounds for the practice outlined in our recommendations.

Third, we are somewhat puzzled when the majority report several times refers to what it calls "Christian Reformed practice," as if admitting children to the Lord's Supper upon a profession of faith was a practice unique to one denomination. In actual fact, as demonstrated in both the majority and minority reports, the general practice of the Christian Reformed Church has been well within the bounds of that practiced by virtually all Reformed. churches throughout the world ever since Reformation times. Those practices have served well to nurture covenant youth in circumstances as vastly different as sixteeneth-century Europe and twentieth-century Africa and should not be abandoned carelessly. We believe that the recommendations we offer here will provide North American Christian Reformed congregations with sufficient flexibility to meet their own unique challenges while still remaining within the bounds of biblical teaching and the pastoral experience of the Reformed churches.

In line with those cautions, therefore, we recommend that synod adopt the following four pastoral guidelines to assist the elders of the churches in leading covenant youth in the way of their covenant Lord.

GUIDELINE 1: THE CONDTION FOR ADMITTING COVENANT CHILDREN TO THE LORD'S SUPPER IS THAT CONDITION WHICH CHRIST ESTABLISHED FOR PARTICIPATION OF ANY COVENANT MEMBER IN HIS SUPPER; NAMELY, FAITH THAT DISCERNS, REMEMBERS, AND PROCLAIMS THE BODY OF CHRIST WHILE PARTAKING.

Comment
As this report has made clear, the Bible establishes specific conditions for participation in the Lord's Supper. God's grace never comes automatically through participation in a specific ritual. There is no value, then, in pressing the elements of Communion into the hands of those who do not have the "mouth of faith" (Belgic Confession Art. 35) to receive God's grace through it.

The Bible makes clear that only those who come near to God "in full assurance of faith" (Heb. 10:22) receive the nourishment offered by Christ. As Jesus said, "He who believes on me" will be fed by his body and blood (John 6:35).

Unlike the majority report, we do not believe that there is any biblical warrant for exempting certain children from these requirements simply because their parents are active church members.

The Bible makes clear what is the shape of the faith required for God's covenant people to participate in his Holy Supper. It must be a faith which discerns the body of Christ while partaking "for anyone who eats and drinks without recognizing the body of the Lord eats and drinks judgment on himself" (I Cor. 11:29). It must also be faith which remembers the Savior's sacrifice in
partaking; as Jesus said, the essence of the Supper is that you "do this in remembrance of me" (Luke 22:19). And finally, it must be a faith which proclaims the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ in anticipation of his return, following the observation of the apostle Paul that whenever anyone meaningfully partakes in the holy sacrament, "you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes"
(I Cor. 11:26).

This first guideline, then, does nothing more than restate in one sentence the central teaching of Scripture concerning the Lord's Supper and the Reformed confessions' understanding of that teaching.

And while we would never wish to deny that covenant children are truly blessed as their parents nurture them in the faith, we remain convinced that the way in which that blessing reveals itself in their lives is through the faith which the Holy Spirit himself works in their hearts. Through God's covenant blessings that faith soon grows into the capacity to participate meaningfully in the
Lord's Supper under the same conditions as the rest of God's covenant people.

GUIDELINE 2: TO BE FAITHFUL IN SUPERVISING THE LORD'S SUPPER PROPERLY; CONSISTORIES REQUIRE A PROFESSION OF FAITH ON THE PART OF ALL WHO PARTAKE.

Comment
Although several members of our committee majority strongly dissent from the majority recommendations at this point, we are glad that the majority report, nevertheless, does recommend that consistories hear a profession of faith from all covenant youth who wish to come to the Lord's table. In that we concur.

We are convinced, however, that the biblical command for public profession of faith is best carried out in the presence of the congregation. For the Bible teaches that when you "believe in your heart" but also when "you confess with your mouth, 'Jesus is Lord' " (Rom. 10:9) that "you will be saved" (Rom. 10:13; see also I Cor. 12:3).

At the same time consistories need to exercise flexibility and wisdom in dealing with specific individuals who seek admission to the Lord's table. But that is nothing new (see Acts of Synod 1959, p. 22). Consistories have always made allowances for the personality and capacity of individuals, sometimes even hearing the profession of faith in a person's home with only a team of
elders present. Surely the youthfulness of a person should also be considered as a factor in the manner by which a consistory hears the profession of faith.

We resist, however, the implication of the majority report that somehow it is inappropriate for covenant youth to declare their faith publicly among God's people. We believe that covenant youth at every age have a place in the worship of God's people and that the faith and witness of God's people needs to be strengthened by more public testimony to our faith, not less.

In a day when children from toddler age on are invited to the front of church for a children's sermon we believe it would be spiritually debilitating to suggest that covenant youth cannot express their faith within the congregation. If the style and atmosphere of our worship does not lend itself to that type of public profession by youth, we believe the problem should be solved by changing the style and atmosphere of worship, not by keeping youth from professing their faith.

GUIDELINE 3: BECAUSE THE BIBLE ESTABUSHES NO SPECIFIC AGE REQUIREMENT, COVENANT YOUTH SHOULD BE ENCOURAGED TO MAKE A PROFESSION OF FAITH AS SOON AS THEY EXHIBIT THAT FAITH WHICH CAN DISCERN, REMEMBER, AND PROCLAIM THE BODY OF CHRIST WHILE PARTAKING.

Comment
When writing the 1986 report, the committee deliberately avoided mention of age throughout most of the report. We believed that if the biblical principles for participation were made clear, then consistories would be able to resolve the age question on an individual basis.

Indeed, the 1986 report made suggestions regarding the strengthening of church education programs, preaching, and pastoral care, in order to ensure that covenant youth are constantly challenged to grow in faith and take their place at the Lord's table. And to underscore that challenge, the 1986 report asked that synod advise the churches that coming to the Lord's table by faithful covenant youth surely should take place no later than early adolescence.

That recommendation proved to be a big mistake! All the committee's efforts at diverting attention from the issue of a specific age were suddenly swept away as readers of the report began to debate whether early adolescence was the proper age to specify. Somehow our recommendation that the churches have their youth at the table no later than early adolescence came to be understood as a recommendation that they come no earlier than early adolescence.

We still believe that Christian Reformed churches often have erred by not sufficiently calling their youth to profess their faith as soon as possible. There still seems to be far too much emphasis on "waiting until you're ready" to come to the table. We think the emphasis should be placed instead on challenging covenant youth to "respond as soon as you're able."

But the unhappy fate of the 1986 recommendation has made clear that we must not even hint at prescribing an age for that response. Rather, we believe that synod should make clear the biblical principles for participation in the sacrament. The elders of the churches will be able to apply those principles in specific circumstances just as they do now. As the Synod of 1959 stated, there is "no stereotyped pattern of confession that may be applied by consistories and sessions in the reception of members" (Acts of Synod 1959, p. 22). Elders have shown great wisdom in judging the professions of persons with mental or social handicaps. If synod outlines the biblical requirements clearly, the elders will be able to apply them well.

And so in our present recommendations we have removed all references to age. The church has the responsibility to call everyone to participation in the body of Christ, covenant youth, wayward adults, and unbelievers alike. And as this report has argued, whether the person is six, sixteen, or sixty, there is only one standard by which to judge fitness for participation. Has the Holy Spirit created faith in that person's heart which can discern, remember, and proclaim the body of Christ while partaking?

GUIDELINE 4: THE PROFESSION REQUIRED FOR ADMISSION TO THE LORD'S SUPPER IS AN EXPRESSION OF FAITH AND NOT NECESSARILY THE ACCEPTANCE OF ADULT RESPONSIBILITIES WITHIN A CONGREGATION.

Comment
Apparently the majority of the committee is concerned that profession of faith is considered an acceptance of adult responsibilities within the church and hence is inhibiting covenant youth from coming to the Lord's table. In fact, that understanding of profession of faith appears to underlie the majority's desire to exempt covenant children from making a public profession of faith.

However, as this report has argued extensively in Section II, E, such a view of profession of faith rests on a grave misunderstanding of the practice. While the majority report may describe what certain people within the church perceive profession of faith to be, the general description given in the majority report has little foundation in the confessions, synodical decisions, or history of the Reformed churches. The majority report notwithstanding, it must be remembered that the ceremony called "profession of faith" has standing within the confessions and Church Order only as a ceremony of admission to the table of the Lord, not as a rite of passage to so-called adult responsibilities within the congregation.

For instance, other standards must be applied before a professing member is considered eligible for holding office in the church-standards such as spiritual maturity, leadership ability, gender, and others. As the Synod of 1959 expressed it, "Office in the church presupposes spiritual gifts for the office and a doctrinal understanding and competence which may not be imposed as a
condition of church membership" (Acts of Synod 1959, p. 22). Similarly, many congregations have withheld the right to vote from many professing members, most notably from the women members of the congregation.

We believe that this simple affirmation will clarify the nature of profession of faith and so solve most of the objections which the majority report raises toward requiring a profession of faith on the part of covenant youth. If the churches truly understand the nature of profession of faith they will no longer be inhibited from their responsibility to call covenant youth to be seated at the
Lord's table as soon as their faith to participate meaningfully becomes apparent.

IV. RECOMMENDATIONS

A. That synod grant the privilege of the floor to any members of the study committee who are present during discussion of the report.

B. That synod adopt the pastoral guidelines as presented in Section III, B of this report

Grounds:
1. This report has demonstrated the biblical and confessional warrant for admitting covenant children to the Lord's Supper when they confess their faith.
2. These guidelines will assist the churches in encouraging covenant youth to take their place at the Lord's table.

C. That synod discharge the present committee.
Carl E. Zylstra, reporter
James C. Schaap
Mark D. Vander Hart